Elon Musk's social media platform X plans to introduce features allowing users to trade stocks and cryptocurrencies directly from their timelines in the coming weeks. The company's head of product, Nikita Bier, announced the rollout of Smart Cashtags, which will enable interactions with ticker symbols in posts. This move aligns with Musk's vision to transform X into an 'everything app' encompassing financial services.
Elon Musk’s platform X is preparing to expand into financial services with new trading capabilities. According to Nikita Bier, X's head of product, the company will launch several features in a couple of weeks, including Smart Cashtags. These tools will allow users to interact with ticker symbols for stocks and cryptocurrencies in posts and execute trades directly from the app's timeline.
Bier clarified in a post that X will not handle trade execution or act as a brokerage. Instead, the platform is building financial data tools and links that redirect users to external exchanges. Smart Cashtags were initially announced in January, providing live pricing information, but the trading functionality was revealed later.
This development coincides with the upcoming external beta launch of X Money, the platform's in-house payments system. Musk stated that X Money is already in internal testing and will be available to a limited group of users within one to two months. He described it as 'the place where all the money is,' aiming to serve as the central source of monetary transactions and position X as a game-changer.
Musk has long envisioned X—formerly Twitter—as an 'everything app' similar to China's WeChat, where users can message, post, send money, and invest without leaving the platform. In 2023, X obtained money transmitting licenses in the US to support these ambitions. Musk's companies have prior crypto involvement: Tesla holds 11,509 bitcoin, down from 42,300 acquired in early 2021, while SpaceX controls around 8,285 BTC. Musk has supported dogecoin, with SpaceX and Tesla accepting DOGE for merchandise, and he recently suggested putting it 'on the moon.'
