XChat, the standalone messaging app from Elon Musk’s X, climbed to the top spot on the US App Store, edging out OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude within hours of its iPhone debut.
The leap to No. 1 hands Musk an early win in his bid to fold messaging, AI, and crypto-ready payments into a single app under the X brand.
XChat tops the free app chart
The App Store screenshot, shared by X head of product Nikita Bier on Saturday morning, showed XChat first, ChatGPT second, and Claude third. Bier reposted the chart with a brief caption.
Bier joined X last year to lead consumer growth and previously took social apps TBH and Gas to the top of the chart.
The chart performance puts a private messenger ahead of two of the highest-profile US AI assistants. ChatGPT had held the top free spot through much of the past year, with Claude tracking it closely.
XChat is built in Rust with what X calls Bitcoin-style encryption. The app offers end-to-end encrypted chats, voice and video calls, and file transfer without requiring a phone number.
Group chats hold up to 481 members, with X targeting a 1,000-seat cap in the coming weeks. The integrated Grok assistant lets users summarize files and draft messages inside conversations.
X Money and Crypto Rails are Next?
The download surge matters because XChat is one piece of Musk’s broader stack. X has said its X Money wallet, built with Visa, will roll out shortly after the messaging launch.
The roadmap covers peer-to-peer fiat transfers first, with crypto support flagged for a later release. That would put XChat users a tap away from on-platform payments. X has secured money transmitter licenses in more than 40 US states, clearing one regulatory hurdle for the rollout.
The launch positions XChat against WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal on messaging, with PayPal and Venmo entering the picture once payments go live. For traders, the pairing matters most when Cashtags and X Money sit alongside group chats.
Whether XChat holds the No. 1 spot past the launch news cycle will depend on retention, not headline downloads. The next test arrives once X Money rolls live and the promised crypto rails switch on inside Musk’s broader vision. Holding the chart will be the harder challenge once the launch news fades.
