X has begun opening its long-anticipated payments service, X Money, to external users for the first time, distributing beta invites through an unconventional auction tied to a $1,000 charitable donation and involving actor William Shatner.
The beta had previously been limited to internal testing among X employees. Rather than a standard rollout, Elon Musk partnered with Shatner to offer 42 invites to the X Money beta via an online auction that ran on Monday, with proceeds going to Shatner’s charity supporting children’s and veterans’ organizations.
The $42 Payment and the Beta Invites
The auction carried Musk’s explicit blessing. Shatner confirmed he received payment from Musk through the X Money app itself, with a screenshot showing the amount sent was $42, a reference to Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” in which 42 is calculated as the answer to the meaning of life. Musk reshared Shatner’s posts to his own feed, commenting “X Money” on one and adding “This will be big” to another.
Winners of the auction receive access to the X Money interface inside the X app, where a new link appears just below the Premium section on their profile. They also become among the first to receive a metal X Money debit card bearing their username, issued in partnership with Visa, which is powering the person-to-person payments infrastructure.
What X Money Offers
Screenshots posted by Shatner show the X Money interface organized into three tabs: Account, Rewards, and Activity. Users can make deposits, send money, and submit payment requests. The service also offers a direct deposit option with an annual percentage yield of up to 6.00%.
User deposits are held by Cross River Bank, a Member FDIC institution, and are insured up to $250,000 per individual. X Payments itself is not an FDIC-insured bank, but it has been acquiring money transmitter licenses across the United States and now holds licenses in more than 40 states.
Part of a Broader “Everything App” Strategy
X Money fits into Musk’s stated ambition to build X into an all-encompassing platform offering messaging, payments, creator content, subscriptions, and video under one roof. At X’s internal all-hands meeting in February, Musk told staff the service would enter a limited external beta within one to two months before expanding to all users worldwide. The current auction-based rollout appears to be the start of that process.
The payments ambition is not new for Musk. He founded the online financial services startup X.com in 1999, which later merged into the entity that became PayPal. After acquiring Twitter in October 2022 and renaming it X the following year, building out payments has been a consistent strategic priority.
X is also currently testing a standalone app for its messaging service, X Chat. A separate standalone X Money app has not been announced, but the possibility exists as the service scales and competes more directly with platforms like Venmo, PayPal, and Cash App.
Photo by Hudson Graves on Unsplash
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