Elon Musk’s X to launch crypto and stock trading in ‘couple weeks’

Elon Musk’s social media platform X is set to soon let users trade stocks and cryptocurrencies directly from their timelines as the company pushes deeper into financial services.

The upcoming features, described by the company’s head of product, Nikita Bier, will include “Smart Cashtags.” These will allow users to interact with ticker symbols in posts and execute trades from the app.

The announcement comes as the company prepares to launch an external beta of X Money, its in-house payments system. Musk said the tool is already live in internal testing and will be available to a limited group of users within one to two months.

The idea is to make X a one-stop platform where users can message, post, send money and invest, a version of Musk’s “everything app” vision.

He’s compared the rollout of financial tools like X Money to adding banking services inside the app, saying users could eventually manage most of their daily digital activity without leaving the platform.

Elon Musk’s companies have been involved with crypto in the past. His electric car maker Tesla owns 11,509 bitcoin on its balance sheet, down from an initial investment of 42,300 made in early 2021. SpaceX currently controls around 8,285 BTC.

Over the years Musk has also shown support for the meme-inspired cryptocurrency dogecoin. In 2022, he said SpaceX would accept DOGE for some merchanside, echoing an earlier move from Tesla. Earlier this month, Musk said he may put DOGE “on the moon.”