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Elon Musk Outlines How Payments Could Work on Twitter

Elon Musk said he imagined users connecting their online bank accounts to Twitter, according to reports.

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Alix Langone
alix
Alix Langone Reporter
Alix is a staff writer for CNET Money where she focuses on real estate, housing and the mortgage industry. She previously reported on retirement and investing for Money.com and was a staff writer at Time magazine. She has written for various publications, such as Fortune, InStyle and Travel + Leisure, and she also worked in social media and digital production at NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt and NY1. She graduated from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and Villanova University. When not checking Twitter, Alix likes to hike, play tennis and watch her neighbors' dogs. Now based out of Los Angeles, Alix doesn't miss the New York City subway one bit.
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Twitter payments
James Martin/CNET

Twitter has filed paperwork to bring payment processing to the platform, according to a report by The New York Times. 

Elon Musk, Twitter's new CEO, acknowledged the move in a livestream with advertisers on Wednesday morning, with the Times reporting that Musk "discussed a vision for Twitter to process payments, complete with connected debit cards and bank accounts."

The documents were filed last week with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, according to the report. 

Musk, who acquired Twitter on Oct. 27 and is also the co-founder of PayPal, also said on Wednesday that Twitter's new $8 monthly charge for a Twitter Blue subscription will set up users to segue into using the platform for payments and sending money between accounts.

"Now we can say you've got a balance on your account. Do you want to send money to someone else within Twitter? And maybe we pre-populate the account," said Musk during the livestream, adding that users could link online bank accounts to Twitter. "Then the next step would be to offer an extremely compelling money market account to get extremely high-yield on your balance," he said. "And then add debit cards, checks." Musk didn't offer specifics.

Twitter didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.