X taps William Shatner to give out invites to its payments service, X Money

X Chat’s standalone app isn’t the lone caller work X is investigating this week. The institution has besides begun offering prime users invites to its X Money payments service, which was previously being tested internally among X employees. These invites, however, were not doled retired successful the emblematic way. Instead, X proprietor Elon Musk worked with William Shatner (yes, the actor) to invitation radical into the beta successful speech for a $1,000 donation to Shatner’s charity that supports childrens’ and veterans’ organizations.

On X, Shatner has been sharing information astir the X Money work and its beta invites, which were made available via an online auction connected Monday. Musk reshared 1 of Shatner’s posts to his ain feed, saying simply “X Money.” Musk besides reposted different user’s station astir X Money, adding, “This volition beryllium big.”

The auction, Shatner noted, was conducted with Musk’s blessing aft Shatner received outgo from Musk via the X Money app. (A screenshot showed that Musk sent him $42, a playful sci-fi reference: the fig is, successful “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams, the computed reply to the meaning of life.)

X besides offered 42 invites to the X Money beta to those who donated successful the auction.

After receiving a notification, the auction winners will beryllium capable to spot a nexus to the X Money work look successful the app, conscionable beneath the nexus to Premium. They volition besides beryllium among the archetypal to person the metallic X Money debit paper with their username from X’s partner, Visa, which is helping powerfulness the person-to-person payments facet of the service.

The summation of X Money to X is portion of Musk’s program to marque the societal web much of an “everything app,” offering a assortment of features, including backstage messaging, payments, creator content, subscriptions, video, and more.

Screenshots posted by Shatner connected X showed the X Money interface with 3 tabs: Account, Rewards, and Activity, on with buttons for making deposits, sending money, and making requests. Users besides person the enactment of mounting up nonstop deposit to gain APY, the screenshots showed. (One surface showed the enactment of earning up to 6.00% APY.)

Users’ deposits are held by Cross River Bank, Member FDIC, and are insured up to $250,000 per individual, per a screenshot Shatner posted.

X Payments itself is not an FDIC-insured bank, but it has been racking up wealth transmitter licenses crossed the U.S. X present has licenses in implicit 40 U.S. states, and, successful X’s public all-hands meeting successful February, Musk told unit that the work would participate a constricted outer beta successful a period oregon two, earlier going worldwide to each users.

With X Chat, the institution hasn’t conscionable launched a caller nexus wrong X but is investigating giving the messaging work its ain standalone app. Potentially, X Money could person its ain app arsenic good to amended vie with others successful the space, similar Venmo, PayPal, and Cash App.

Musk’s involvement successful payments has spanned decades, arsenic helium founded an online fiscal services startup called X.com successful 1999, which was aboriginal merged into the institution that became PayPal. After acquiring Twitter in October 2022, Musk renamed the institution X little than a twelvemonth later, successful tribute to his aboriginal beginnings.