SAN FRANCISCO: On Monday, Utah became the 15th US state to approve Elon Musk’s social media network X, which was previously known as Twitter, with a money-transmitter licence as the business looks into providing payment features. According to the Nationwide Multistate Licencing System & Registry, an online database, Utah approved the application on Friday. It gives the business the capacity to handle money transactions and paves the way for the company to enable customers to send money to one another, much like PayPal’s Venmo. The move towards payments could aid X in expanding its revenue stream beyond digital advertising, which has seen difficulties since Musk assumed ownership.
After Musk last year sided with an X user who promoted an antisemitic conspiracy theory, some significant advertisers stopped investing on the platform or abandoned it altogether. Later that month, the billionaire CEO made a crude remark about companies that had cancelled their advertisements on X while speaking at a New York Times DealBook event.
Following his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022, Musk has stated that he plans to transform the business into a distributor of “everything apps,” akin to the well-known Chinese app WeChat, which allows users to pay shops or hail a cab in addition to sending messages.
In June of last year, New Hampshire granted the firm its first state money transmitter licence. Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, and Michigan also granted approval.