Well, things don't exactly seem to be going fantastic for Elon Musk's X project at this point in time, but we're really only just at the beginning of this "everything app" plan, and we haven't even got on to the payments piece yet, right?
 
According to a new finding in the back-end code of the app (via @swak_12), it looks like that payments piece might be coming soon.
Yes, X is building out its coming payments UI, one key element in Elon Musk's grand vision for what the app will eventually grow to become.

In a nutshell, in 2000, Musk and then colleague David Sacks conceptualized an app that could also provide online facilitation of not just payments but all other kinds of financial transactions as well. The concept was under the name "x.com," with which Musk and Sacks submitted their proposal to PayPal management. However, the broader concept would later be scrapped, in favor of a more focused PayPal product.

Both Musk and Sacks left the company but kept that vision with them since then. Musk has brought it to his new project X, through which he hopes to be able to preserve free speech principles while enacting that original plan. Which, besides payments, will also, in Musk's view, provide high-yield accounts, debit cards, check and loan services, etc. 

That hopefully will revolutionize financial transactions, Musk said, citing as the first step, in-stream payments, for low-cost or fee-free instantaneous transactions.

Even with UI indicators appearing in the code, X still has some way to make it a reality.

The company gained money transmitter licenses in 31 U.S. states, which will be required for enabling the first stage of the offering. Which, of course means it's still pending approval in 20 more states, but it's also worth noting that X only had 15 approvals as of this January. Which means X might very well be on track to gain full approval before the year is out, opening the door for the app to offer in-stream payments to US users to begin with.

From there, the service also would need to secure payment processor licenses, which are required if X wants to enable direct shopping within streams. And that would only, of course, apply to the US market, with a similar application process required for each region where X payments is to operate.

This is much slower than even Elon had expected. Therefore, the launch is likely to be pushed ahead. Last October, Musk told X staff that: "It would blow my mind if we don't have [payments] rolled out by the end of [2024]."

It might theoretically still turn out this way, but with only four and half months left, it would seem as though X is going to be pushed hard to get in-stream payments active and money transfer functionality within the app working.

The strategy has really got a degree of reliance on people actually using the option.
While X may well be able to facilitate payments at some stage, there's the entire question of whether people are going to even trust Elon and Co. with their money and ensuring that their payments are safely and reliably made over X.

There is a question of utility also: Why would people actually need X payments when there are enough existing similar options available in the market?

Of course, in line with this, the view here is that what gets people on board is offering, ideally fee-free transactions, but once they're transferring money in the app, the natural extension then would be to have in-stream purchases and, further on, other financial offerings using the money already being shifted through X's circuits.

But I do not know whether users are going to be so open to that. And whereas free-of-fee transactions could be an enticement, that would also hold infinitely more allure in markets outside the U.S., where remittance is a much larger part of regular transactional activity.

And that expansion could be a much bigger challenge for X to help facilitate.

Musk is constant in roasting the governments of other countries, criticizing their actions and policies at almost every turn. That's unlikely to make them extremely friendly to X potentially emerging as a player within their own financial skies.

So, I don't see X payments coming online nearly as smoothly as Musk might hope.

But that's next. For now, first and foremost, X needs to get payments up and running here in the United States.

Which, by this new UI image, is slowly coming up.