The Linux Foundation | 01 October 2026
Payments industry veteran will lead the growing community of more than 50 organizations advancing an open standard for internet-native payments
Summary
- The Linux Foundation appointed payments veteran Michael Hursta as Executive Director of the x402 Foundation.
- Hursta will lead 50+ member organizations advancing x402, an open standard for internet-native payments across AI agents, applications and APIs.
- With 20+ years of industry experience at Amazon, PwC, and First Data, Hursta brings extensive expertise in payment rails, digital assets and commercial scaling.
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 1, 2026 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the appointment of payments industry executive Michael Hursta as executive director of the x402 Foundation. Hursta will lead the foundation as it advances x402, the neutral open standard for internet-native payments, working with its more than 50 active members to build an open, interoperable payment layer for AI agents, applications and APIs.
Hursta brings more than 20 years of payments industry experience spanning global commerce, payment technology, emerging payment rails, digital assets and industry partnerships. Most recently, he was a partner at Commerce Technology Partners, advising merchants, software companies, payment providers and fintechs on strategy, technology, and new business models. Previously, he led the enterprise payments advisory practice at PwC, where his work included digital assets, tokenization, cross-border payments and emerging payment rails.
“Michael’s experience across payments, commerce and emerging financial technologies arrives at an important point in the growth of x402,” said Jim Zemlin, CEO of the Linux Foundation. “His leadership bringing new payment technologies from emerging concepts to commercial scale will be invaluable as this community moves that work forward.”
Hursta also served as head of payment acceptance and experience for North America at Amazon, leading payment strategy, technology innovation and major industry partnerships. Earlier, he spent more than a decade at First Data Corporation, including serving as general manager of its global merchant prepaid business.
“Payments have always had to adapt to how people and businesses use the internet, and AI agents and machine-driven commerce create a new set of requirements,” said Hursta. “x402 gives the industry an opportunity to build that next layer as open infrastructure rather than another proprietary payment system. I’m excited to work with our members, developers and contributors to make x402 a broadly adopted standard that enables software and AI agents to transact across the internet.”
The appointment reflects the x402 Foundation's continued growth following its operational launch in July 2026. The Foundation provides a neutral, openly governed home for the x402 protocol, enabling companies and developers across payments, financial services, cloud infrastructure and technology to collaboratively shape how software and AI agents discover and complete payments natively over the internet.
To learn more about the x402 Foundation, its members and how to participate, visit https://x402.org.
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