Elon Musk’s X platform has payments licenses in seven US states

• The most recent payment license that X obtained was from Rhodes Island.
• Some of the US states that X has received clearance for payment processing include Arizona, Maryland, and Georgia.
• Elon Musk has previously hinted that X would support crypto payments in addition to fiat currency transactions.

The social media site X, owned by Elon Musk and formerly known as Twitter, has been granted payment licenses by a number of American states, including a currency transmitter license in Rhode Island which the company received earlier this week.

Elon Musk has hinted at supporting crypto on X, even briefly replacing the old Twitter bird logo with dogecoin’s dog before its rebranding to X last month. It is however not clear if the obtained licenses allow for crypto payments despite the fact that the licenses allow for broader payment services to be offered on the platform.

Plans to support payments processing on X

So far, the money transmitter licenses obtained are from Arizona, Maryland, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, and New Hampshire. The move indicates the tech billionaire may have plans to support nationwide payment processing similar to Venmo or PayPal, a company he co-founded.

Musk has stated that he plans for X to expand beyond social media posts and become an “everything app.”

The most recent Payment processing license that X obtained was from Rhodes Island. The Department of Business Regulation (DBR) of Rhode Island stated in a frequently asked questions document that businesses needing clearance “include those transmitting money for its customers, including traditional wire transfers (like Western Union) and electronic transfers (like PayPal)” needed to obtain the currency transmission license.

The state’s currency transmission license is also necessary for businesses looking to conduct cryptocurrency exchange and custody business. Fintechs are only exempt in “very rare cases” where the company “is registered as a true ‘agent’ of the Rhode Island licensed currency transmitter… and money transmission is not the core profit-making business of the fintech.”

In New Hampshire, “money transmission’ means engaging in the business of selling or issuing payment instruments or stored value, or receiving currency or monetary value for transmission to another location.” The state’s laws also say “an administrator or exchanger that accepts and transmits a convertible virtual currency or buys or sells convertible virtual currency for any reason is a money transmitter under federal regulations”