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Affirm CEO Sees Little Appetite in the US for Elon Musk’s Everything App

2023-07-29 03:16
Elon Musk’s vision of an everything app that includes banking capabilities may not be what Americans are looking
Affirm CEO Sees Little Appetite in the US for Elon Musk’s Everything App

Elon Musk’s vision of an everything app that includes banking capabilities may not be what Americans are looking for, said Max Levchin, who co-founded PayPal Holdings Inc. with the world’s richest man.

“I do think that the everything app worked really well in a place, in a time, in a different country,” Levchin, now chief executive officer of financial-technology firm Affirm Holdings Inc., said Friday on Bloomberg Television. “I don’t think the US consumer is looking for a version of a Tencent product.”

Musk wants Twitter, which he bought in 2022, to be more like Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat, a messaging service that also allows users to send each other funds, pay for goods and services and borrow money. The app is used daily by more than a billion people in China, but attempts by tech firms including PayPal, Facebook and Google to offer something similar in the US haven’t been successful.

Read More: Elon Musk the Banker Wants to Take On Dimon Where Google Failed

While Musk is facing an uphill battle, Levchin said he isn’t betting against his one-time colleague.

“Don’t ever put anything past Elon,” he said. “He has proven time and time again that he can achieve crazy things.”

--With assistance from Sonali Basak.

(Adds PayPal affiliation in first paragraph.)

Author: Marnie Muñoz and Tanaz Meghjani