Elon Musk’s social media platform X will soon let users trade stocks and cryptocurrencies directly from their timelines as the company pushes deeper into financial services.
The upcoming features, described by the company’s product manager, Nikita Bier, will include “Smart Cashtags.” These will allow users to interact with ticker symbols in posts and execute trades from within the app.
The announcement comes as the company prepares to launch an external beta of X Money, its internal payment system. Musk said the tool is already live in internal testing and will be available to a limited group of users within one to two months.
The idea is to make X a one-stop platform where users can message, send, send money and invest, a version of Musk’s “everything app” vision.
He has compared the rollout of financial tools like X Money to the addition of in-app banking services, saying users could eventually manage most of their daily digital activity without leaving the platform.
Elon Musk’s companies have been involved in crypto in the past. His electric car maker Tesla holds 11,509 bitcoin on its balance sheet, down from an initial investment of 42,300 made in early 2021. SpaceX currently controls about 8,285 BTC.
Over the years, Musk has also shown support for the meme-inspired cryptocurrency dogecoin. In 2022, he said SpaceX would accept DOGE for some merchandise, echoing an earlier move by Tesla. Earlier this month, Musk said he might put DOGE “on the moon.”
