The world's richest man could be about to add a few more zeros to his bank balance, as Elon Musk looks like he's moving back into the banking business.
Musk has come a long way from his early days, initially making an impressive $175.8 million when PayPal was sold to eBay back in 2002.
Since then, he's made a name for himself with everything from Tesla to SpaceX, The Boring Company to Neuralink, although it's not always been smooth sailing.
Notably, Elon Musk has tried to get into the artificial intelligence business with xAI, as well as launching the controversial Grok chatbot after he purchased Twitter in October 2022.
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It's fair to say that his time with the Twitterverse has been something of a roller coaster, but as the social media giant now sits under the banner of xAI, Mr. Musk has grand plans to expand things further.
We've previously heard about his ambitions to launch X Money, with former X Corp CEO Linda Yaccarino pitching it as a payment system that would help turn X into an 'everything app' similar to Tencent's WeChat.
Rumors of X Money launching in 2025 never came to pass, but keen to kickstart 2026 with a monetary bang, Musk has stated, "This will be big," while promoting X Money. Those who've kept up with the tech mogul's moves over the year will know he's going back to his roots.
Musk co-founded X.com way back in 1999, with it eventually evolving into PayPal.
Referring to his next move, Musk shared a post that called X Money "a once-in-a-generation opportunity." Users are promised high-yield savings and will supposedly be able to "invest, get loans, have money market accounts, maybe even treasury access, cool Smart Cashtags that let you see live stock prices in your timeline and execute trades seamlessly, crypto integration, [and] potentially full asset management."
In February 2026, X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, teased X Money's imminent arrival and told the Xverse: "We are launching a number of features in a couple weeks, including Smart Cashtags that will enable you to trade stocks and crypto directly from timeline."
He later clarified that X wouldn't be handling trade execution or acting as a broker. Instead, it will be "building the financial data tools and links."
All of this comes as Bitcoin prices have again surged. As noted by Forbes, Bitcoin has leaped by over 10% since it dipped dramatically in the aftermath of the USA's Operation Epic Fury against Iran. While there are fears that we're on the cusp of World War III, that doesn't seem to be stopping Bitcoin or Elon Musk's X Money rollout.
During a February 2026 presentation, Musk confirmed that X Money was in a closed beta phase and was moving into a limited public test ahead of a wider rollout.
That's already underway thanks to a little help from Star Trek's William Shatner. The 94-year-old actor offered 42 invitations to those who donated $1,000 to his charity that supports children and veterans.
Visa is powering X Money's person-to-person payments aspect, all as we move toward an era where you can potentially chat, shop, and handle your finances all from the comfort of X. Every day, it seems like we're straying further from what Twitter once was.