By Emily Dattilo

Elon Musk is nearly everywhere.

He already boasts a presence in electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, social media, and politics. Now, he appears to be carving out a space in financial services.

In a post Tuesday, X CEO Linda Yaccarino wrote that Visa is the first partner for the XMoney Account service, which will be available later this year. The credit-card company chimed in with its own post a short while later, saying: " Visa Direct will make it possible for US X Money Account users to fund and transfer money in real-time with their debit card."

The announcement is a logical move by X in its attempts to become a so-called super app, Seaport Research Partners analyst Jeff Cantwell argued. A super app is one that offers users a range of services such as food delivery, video games, and wealth management.

"Elon Musk has a long backstory with PayPal: in 1999 he founded X.com, an online banking platform offering users numerous financial products and services, including checking accounts, savings accounts, and P2P payments," he wrote, referring to peer-to-peer payments.

"After merging with Confinity in 2000, X.com eventually rebranded and became PayPal in 2001, by which point Mr. Musk had already exited the company," he continued. "This announcement today on X Money/Visa, therefore, is part of a 'bigger picture:' it's an attempt by Mr. Musk to recreate his old 'vision' of building a holistic financial services ecosystem for consumers ('Everything App')."

The analyst believes the initiative is a positive for Visa and will add to revenue over time. The question now is at what rate consumers adopt the payment option.

"Looking ahead, we suspect X's social media feed will prove highly useful as a 'pull' mechanism for X Money; meaning, X already has substantial mindshare with consumers -- and where people spend their time, payments can (and will) often follow," he wrote. "PayPal and especially Venmo will be in competition with X Money, as will Cash App and Zelle."

Write to Emily Dattilo at emily.dattilo@dowjones.com

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January 29, 2025 11:37 ET (16:37 GMT)

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