Twitter is getting into payments – Elon Musk says the platform could offer debit cards and monetary accounts

Twitter has filed documents with the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to launch a payments business. Tesla CEO and Twitter chief Elon Musk explained that the social media platform could offer “An extremely compelling money market account” in addition to the “debit cards, checks and other“.

Elon Musk shares his ideas for Twitter’s payment system

Twitter has filed registration documents with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to allow it to process payments, The New York Times reported Wednesday, noting that it has seen the filing.

During an audio podcast on the Twitter Spaces on Wednesday, Tesla’s CEO and Twitter’s new boss gave a comprehensive overview of Twitter’s business. During the broadcast, he described how the social media company plans to “enable monetization for creators.”

Elon Musk then shared his thoughts on how verified users who pay an $8 monthly subscription to Twitter will be “authenticated by the payment system“, stating:

Now, we can say, for example, okay, you have a balance in your account, do you want to send money to someone else in Twitter? … And maybe we pre-fill their account with it and say, okay, we’ll give you $10, and you can send it anywhere in Twitter.

Users with authenticated bank accounts linked to their Twitter accounts will be able to “exit the system“and transfer their Twitter balance off the platform,” Musk explained, adding:

The next step would be to offer an extremely attractive money market account to get an extremely high return on your balance.

Twitter could then add “Debit cards, checks and other“, the Tesla and Spacex boss noted. Operating a payments business would make Twitter a competitor to Paypal, a company Musk helped found.

Musk has previously said he wants to build X, the app for everything, and Twitter will likely accelerate the creation of X by three to five years.