X has hit yet another milestone in Elon Musk's "everything app" vision, after X Corp secured money transmitter approval in Utah, marking the fifteenth U.S. state to approve the company for a money transmitter license.

X had been collecting money transmitter approvals in the months leading up to the launch of the first stage of peer-to-peer payments in the app.

A money transmitter license would allow the business permission to conduct money transfers between senders and recipients; payment processor licensing would follow if X wanted further facilitation of direct shopping in-stream.

But money transmitter approval would smoothen the first step, though X has many ways to go before such functionality becomes very much actualized, starting with full approvals from each U.S. state.

Which could take time, a point that Elon has also conceded.

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And that's even before considering cross-border approval for payments, which, as Meta learned the hard way, is impressively complex and simply impossible in some areas.

Still, X has got to start somewhere, and given the company recently detailed a plan to let full payments and banking services inside the X platform by the end of 2024, it better get cracking if it wants to hit its aggressive aspirations.

Which, as noted, is again aligned with Musk's broader x.com vision, which Elon remains optimistic will happen sometime soon.

Which again, is again tinged with Elon's customary optimism, which, at times, borders on blatant fantasy.

At a company-wide meeting last fall, Musk said of X Corp that he's expecting "within the next few months" money transmitter licensure approval in all U.S. states and added that "it would blow my mind if we don't have [payments] rolled out by the end of next year.".

Bold aim, but still as a first step, X might be well-positioned soon to launch the basic building blocks of peer-to-peer payments, which would unlock the full range of new possibilities in the app.

Musk's X vision, which he and former business partner David Sacks established when they worked together back at PayPal in 1999, incorporates payments at its core and stems into all other areas. In their initial plan, Musk and Sacks outlined plans to build a single platform on which all financial transactions-from paying the rent or electricity bill, to doing banking, purchasing things online, etc.-should eventually be channeled through. That app, that even in 1999 Elon was insistent would be called x.com, would then, at least theory, become the backbone of modern society, by taking a new approach to online interactions that essentially eliminated the need for banks, loans under traditional structures, etc.

Musk is still holding firm to that vision, with payments being the first small step towards a wider offering.

If X can make it happen.

Once again, Meta has been striving for years to make Facebook Pay, now rebranded as Meta Pay a payment service that can gain serious traction, but largely without success.
Meta also once employed a former PayPal exec for its efforts in this space, with David Marcus having overseen the creation of its Libra in-house payment system, which Meta launched in 2019 with the help of the promotion of a range of leading financial partners.
However, it was not long before concerns over the project resulted in the optimism for a standalone in-app payments network, to be fueled by a corporate U.S. entity becoming rapidly deflated. After all, many of the regions flat out stated that they would not support the company developing its own currency and the public backlash resultantly saw many of the initial high-profile supporters withdraw their support, such as Visa, Mastercard and PayPal, all major names which had lent substantial credibility to the initial concept.

Meta has tried a host of other approaches to payment facilitation, and Meta Pay has been tested and canceled in several regions. It is still working through how it wants to move forward for the system but skepticism about the motives of the company and alternative payment options continues to limit its ability to build its own in-stream payments push in any meaningful way.

Just what X will also face. And whereas many point to Musk's experience with PayPal as being a key advantage for X's push again, Meta also had a PayPal leader in charge of its biggest payments project, and even he wasn't able to make it happen within the modern regulatory landscape.

There's a whole raft of considerations there, and perhaps, Elon will prove some edge, in ways which will see X payments take off way more than Meta could.

But again. I would say that X is being far too optimistic, firstly, about the quantities for its launch, and then subsequently about the take up of its payments capability, should/when it gains fully approved status.