Elon Musk wants Twitter to be an “everything app,” which includes peer-to-peer payments, and has taken the first steps toward that goal by securing crucial financial licenses in three states. But, according to company insiders who spoke to Fortune, the next steps are unclear as chaos reigns, regulatory hurdles loom, and potential competitors like Venmo and PayPal dominate the market.
Under the ownership of the cost-cutting Musk, the social media giant has encountered numerous obstacles, including lawsuits and severe website malfunctions. More than 80% of Twitter’s workforce has been let go or resigned, leading to a scarcity of engineers with expertise in the platform’s legacy systems, hindering efforts to address the myriad bugs plaguing the platform. It’s also left fewer engineers to spin up a payments system seeking to serve hundreds of millions of users.
