Benzinga - Elon Musk has strongly supported DOGE for several years, dating back to his first tweet about the token in 2019. Since then, Musk has made multiple moves to incorporate DOGE into his various business ventures. Most recently, he has enabled DOGE as a form of payment for Tesla merchandise and is securing payment licenses for his social media platform, X. These moves signal that Musk is intent on providing DOGE payments on X, which could have a huge impact on the cryptocurrency industry.
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In early May 2024, Musk and Tesla quietly enabled DOGE payments on the Tesla website. The new feature came after Musk visited the Berlin gigafactory, where he was asked about enabling DOGE payments. "We should enable that," Musk responded. Tesla customers can now send DOGE to the Tesla wallet in exchange for merchandise. Though Tesla did not formally announce the change, DOGE enthusiasts were quick to spot it and the price of DOGE rallied more than 20% in the following days.
Additionally, Musk and X have been acquiring payment licenses in U.S. states. At the time of this report, they hold 25 licenses, and the count is growing monthly. These licenses are necessary for enabling peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, similar to how Venmo and Cash App operate. Also, an interesting anecdote from Musk's biography notes that he had dreamed of offering DOGE as a form of payment on a social media platform long before he even acquired X. So, the money transmitter licenses could indicate that the X team is moving closer toward DOGE payments on the platform.
This idea was furthered by a retweet from Musk that had a picture of the old X.com logo next to the current X.com logo with the caption "The Everything App." The post was originally tweeted by a DogeDesigner on X. The account says that they work for DOGE, doing UX/UI design. Musk commented on the retweet saying, "The circle will be complete." The post currently has over 65 million views and 126,000 likes.
The old X.com was a banking and payment website in the early 2000s that Musk founded. The company merged with Confinity to form PayPal, where Musk served a short stint as CEO. Flash forward to 2024, and Musk is hoping to complete the circle by bringing back the payment aspect of the original X.com.
So, the signs point toward Musk wanting to offer DOGE as a form of peer-to-peer payment on the X platform. However, different regulatory hurdles could make this somewhat challenging. Acquiring the payment licenses is a very tedious and slow process. However, Musk seems determined to bring payments to the app and move closer to the "everything app" that he has envisioned for years.
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