X Aims to Take On YouTube With Smart TV Offering

X reportedly plans to debut a television app for smart TVs in a bid to compete with YouTube.

That app could launch on Amazon and Samsung televisions in the coming days, Fortune reported Friday (March 8), citing an unidentified employee of Elon Musk’s media platform.

That source said Musk wants to push users to watch X’s longer videos on a larger screen, with the new app looking “identical” to YouTube’s television app. The report points to Twitch, Signal and Reddit among the other services with which Musk wishes to compete.

Musk himself said as much on X Friday: “We just want people to be able to watch long videos in comfort on their big screen TV.”

PYMNTS has contacted X for comment but has not yet gotten a response.

The company’s efforts to attract smart TV owners comes as an increasing number of consumers own such devices, as PYMNTS Intelligence research has found. 

“On average, consumers own six connected devices, with millennials and bridge millennials being the most connected, with an average of seven devices,” PYMNTS wrote late last year. “The number of devices owned also increases with income, with high-income consumers owning seven devices compared to the four owned by the low-income group.”

The research found that while smartphones were the most prevalent connected device, with 85% of consumers owning one, smart TVs were second, owned by 65% of consumers. 

Since Musk took over X — formerly Twitter — he has looked for ways to turn the platform into his long-dreamed-of “everything app,” even as the site continues to shed users and advertisers.

The multibillionaire said last week that X could soon receive money transmitter licenses from New York and California, which would bring the company closer to offering payments services in those states. Earlier this year, X said it aimed to offer peer-to-peer payments on its platform.

“X is not just another app — it’s becoming the everything app, seamlessly uniting experiences into one interface, for everyone,” the company wrote in a blog post.

Musk reportedly spoke last year of his plans for the company to become a payments super app during a company meeting.

“If it involves money, it’ll be on our platform,” he said. “Money or securities or whatever. So, it’s not just like sending $20 to my friend. I’m talking about, like, you won’t need a bank account.

“It would blow my mind if we don’t have that rolled out by the end of next year,” Musk added.