The initial offer is $25 for each new user.
In the spring of 2026, 20 years after the launch of Twitter, the social network X, which has replaced it, plans to unveil its financial services. With a user base that its owner Elon Musk estimates at 600 million active users, X aims to become one of the leading financial applications in the world, and potentially a super app that provides access to all essential everyday services. This will be hindered by regulators from various countries, as well as the reputation of the social network itself.
Actor William Shatner is not an accidental figure in the universe of X owner Elon Musk. Now 94 years old, he played Captain James T. Kirk in the legendary science fiction series "Star Trek" in the 1960s, and Elon Musk was a fan of his. Now they are friends, exchanging remarks on the social network.
Therefore, it is no coincidence that on March 4, 2026, a series of messages about what the X-Money service will be like appeared on Shatner's account on X. Several screenshots were attached, showing for the first time how fundamentally new features will look on X.
The history of Twitter, which became X, began 20 years ago, on March 21, 2006, with a short post from co-founder Jack Dorsey: "Just setting up my twttr." Ahead was explosive growth — the service, which initially allowed users to post messages of up to 140 characters, repost them, or communicate with other users within the same 140 characters, became extremely popular.
By its seventh year, thousands of messages were being published per second; global popularity brought celebrities, politicians, opinion leaders, and experts to Twitter; in 2019, quarterly revenue exceeded $1 billion for the first time. Millions of users kept the most detailed diaries of their lives there.
Elon Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, started by cutting about 50% of the staff, including those responsible for moderation.
Some moderation policies were revised, some banned users were reinstated, and the "blue checkmark," which served for user verification, began to be given to anonymous, yet paid accounts. All this led to accusations of a significant increase in misinformation and hate speech on the platform.
For Elon Musk, the main aspect of Twitter was not only the ability to broadcast his point of view to a vast audience (several studies indicated that his posts could be heavily promoted by the social network), but also the base of hundreds of millions of users.
Musk promised a massive transformation of the service, where in the future, according to his vision, messages would not be the main function. This will be possible to see for the first time later this year.
On February 11, during an internal presentation at X, Musk confirmed that X-Money is already operating in test mode for company employees.
In March, one user boasted that during testing, he paid with an X-branded plastic card at a gas station.
According to Musk, X-Money is expected to launch more widely in April. "We expect that within the next month or two, we will move to limited external beta testing, and then to a global launch for all X users. This should become the place where all money is stored <...> This will truly change the game," Musk said.
Judging by the screenshots on William Shatner's account — for now, the interface of the new service can only be seen there, X will enter the payment systems market.
Back in January 2025, X entered into a strategic partnership with the payment system Visa. This will allow Musk's company to issue both physical and virtual cards. It is expected that in addition to the first and last name, users will be able to indicate their nickname from the social network on these cards.
The initial offer is $25 for each new user, purchases with cashback options, linking a primary bank account, and 6% annual interest on deposits.
In the future, X is expected to work with cryptocurrencies as well. But finance is just part of the ecosystem that Musk plans to create based on Twitter. By March 2026, X incorporated an AI assistant, Grok, into the social network. It can act as a situational assistant for the user and perform more complex tasks related to coding.
Since 2023, X has been developing a payment system for popular authors. In 2026, the service promised a reward of $1 million to whoever writes the most significant text that "shapes discussions, becomes news, and impacts culture." The text must be at least a thousand words long, with the key success criterion being the number of views.
X has introduced a public option for audio and video calls without requiring a phone number. The X-Chat service, which may be separated into a standalone application, is in active testing. It uses end-to-end encryption and will compete with WhatsApp and Facebook's messenger.
In the coming years, X aims to expand even further — to enter the online retail market, create its own video service, and enhance its AI to become a full-fledged assistant that, for example, could filter content for each user.
