Authored by Adam Sharp via DailyReckoning.com,
For years, Elon Musk has dreamed of turning X (formerly Twitter) into the “everything app”.
Now that X is part of SpaceX (SPCX), and the combined company just raised $112 billion, the time looks ripe.
Elon envisions X as a single place where you can bank, chat, earn, advertise, use AI, shop, and more.
X Money is a key part of that vision. And we just got the first idea of what it will look like.
The program just launched to a small group of users. To attract deposits, X is offering some pretty crazy (and likely temporary) perks:
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6% APY on cash, no deposit limit
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3% cash back on purchases (with exceptions)
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$10 million FDIC insurance (by splitting deposits up between banks)
A 6% yield is not sustainable long-term (at current interest rates). It’s a teaser rate to get people to switch to X Money. Same goes for 3% cash back. That’s 3x higher than the industry average, and will almost certainly not last long.
These teasers may get a lot of people to switch. But it’s unclear how long the perks will last, and it’s currently only available to a small group.
X is not a bank. At least not yet. It’s more like a “neobank”, which manages the marketing and customer relationship, while licensed banks handle the deposits.
But for the user, it feels like a bank account and debit card. Deposits, yield, wire transfers, autopay, P2P payments, etc.
The WeChat Model
Musk’s desire t
