X launches X Money payments service in the US after years of delays

X launched its payments service, X Money, in the United States on a Monday in late July 2026, ending years of delays. The service is available to Premium and Premium+ subscribers on the platform formerly known as Twitter. The launch arrived well behind schedule. X CEO Linda Yaccarino had announced in a post on X on December 31, 2024 that a payment system called X Money would launch in 2025. That target slipped, and the company has not publicly explained the reasons for the delays that preceded the eventual rollout. The debut marks a significant step in X's effort to expand beyond advertising and social media. Payments add to a broader push that already gives creators multiple ways to monetize their presence on the platform. According to reports, the company has also been rebuilding its Android app and adjusting its algorithm to prioritize replies from accounts a user already follows — signs of a wider product overhaul now reaching users' wallets.

X Money launches in the US after years of delays

X Money, the payments service long promised for the platform formerly known as Twitter, has gone live in the United States. The launch took place on a Monday in late July 2026, capping years of delays that pushed the service well past its originally announced target of 2025.

Access at launch is restricted. Only subscribers to X's paid tiers, Premium and Premium+, can use the service, leaving free users without access for now. The company has not said when, or whether, availability might widen.

The precise date of the launch within late July has not been disclosed. Nor has X explained what caused the years of delays that preceded it. The gap between the service's announcement and its arrival is clear from the record; the reasons behind it are not.

The launch marks the first time X has operated a payments product of its own in the US market. It arrives as the company continues to reshape the platform beyond its origins as a social network, adding financial services to a business built on advertising and subscriptions. Whether X Money expands beyond the subscriber base, and beyond the United States, remains an open question the company has yet to address.

From a New Year's Eve 2024 promise to a 2026 reality

The road to X Money began, publicly at least, with a New Year's Eve post. According to reports, X chief executive Linda Yaccarino announced in a post on the platform on the afternoon of December 31, 2024 that X would launch a payment system called X Money in 2025. The announcement, made as the year drew to a close, set a clear expectation: the service formerly known as Twitter would enter the payments business within twelve months.

That timeline did not hold. The announced target year of 2025 came and went without a launch, and the service ultimately arrived in late July 2026, roughly a year and a half after Yaccarino's post and well past the date she had set out. The company has not explained what caused the slippage between the announced schedule and the eventual debut.

The gap between promise and product fits a longer pattern. The payments service finally launched on a Monday in late July 2026, following years of delays that predated even Yaccarino's announcement. What was presented at the end of 2024 as an imminent feature became, in practice, a project that took far longer to reach users than its chief executive had indicated.

1. 2022-03-18

   Scheduled theatrical release of Ti West's horror film X

2. 2024-12-31

   X CEO Linda Yaccarino announces in a post on X that the platform will launch a payment system called X Money in 2025

3. 2025

   Announced target year for the launch of X Money

4. 2026-07 (late July, a Monday)

   X launches its payments service, X Money, in the United States for Premium and Premium+ subscribers, following years of delays

Payments join a wider monetization and product push

X Money arrives as one piece of a broader effort to turn the platform into a paying business rather than a free service funded mainly by advertising. The service is available only to Premium and Premium+ subscribers in the United States, tying payments directly to X's paid tiers and giving the company another reason to push users toward subscriptions.

Creators on the platform already have multiple ways to monetize their presence, and X Money extends that logic: the more economic activity that happens inside X, the more central the platform becomes to how its users earn and spend. The pitch is an ecosystem in which audiences, creators and money circulate without leaving the app.

The payments launch also lands amid other reported product work. According to reports, X has released a rebuilt version of its Android app globally following a year-long development effort. Separately, reports suggest the company adjusted its algorithm to give greater priority to replies from accounts a user already follows, a change that would shift what users see in conversation threads. Together, the moves point to a platform being reworked on several fronts at once — how it looks, what it surfaces and how money moves through it.

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