Key to his effort, Musk has said, is putting the social-media company at the center of users’ financial lives, where Twitter users can effortlessly send money to each other, earn interest on deposits and much more through an app. It is a remake that harks back to the early days of his professional career and his first major corporate setback at a startup called X.com, now known as PayPal.
“I think it’s possible to become the biggest financial institution in the world,” Mr. Musk said in March at a Morgan Stanley conference.