Dive Brief:
- X, formerly known as Twitter, received a money transmitter license from South Dakota on Monday, and another one from Kansas on Tuesday. The two licenses advance X owner Elon Musk’s plans to add a payments feature to the social media platform.
- The two licenses were granted to a subsidiary of San Francisco-based X called X Payments LLC, and are listed on the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System. The social media platform now has 11 of the state licenses it needs to pursue nationwide payments.
- Landing licenses this week ends a nearly 90-day drought for X in winning new state licenses after it collected others earlier this year. The slowdown happened after the New York City law firm Walden Macht & Haran wrote a Sept. 8 letter to officials of all 50 states alleging X was “unfit” to hold money transmitter licenses.
Dive Insight:
Shortly after being purchased by Elon Musk last October, X applied for money transmitter licenses in every U.S. state and territory to allow users to send and receive money nationwide through its app. Since then, the social media platform had been steadily receiving state licenses from June through September.
Musk had told investors last year that he could grow X’s revenue to $26.4 billion in six years. A key part of that strategy is building a payments business that contributes $1.3 billion by then, according to a report from The New York Times.
But the steady progress on state licenses stalled for nearly 90 days. The pause followed the law firm’s letter sent to the attorneys general and banking commissioners of all 50 U.S. states. The letter alleged that X had leaked confidential user data of Abdulrahman Al-Sadhan, a man who was allegedly arrested, tortured and imprisoned in Riyadh by the government of Saudi Arabia.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the state licenses or the allegations in WMH Law’s letter. Officials from South Dakota’s Division of Banking and Kansas’s Office of the State Bank Commissioner also didn’t respond to requests for comment.
