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X.com / PayPal

1999–2002

X.com / PayPal

Musk’s role: Co-founder

X.com merged with Confinity in March 2000 to form PayPal, which eBay bought for US$1.5 billion in 2002.

After selling Zip2, Musk co-founded X.com in 1999, one of the first online banks. In March 2000 it merged with Peter Thiel's Confinity to form PayPal, which went public in 2002 and was bought by eBay the same year for US$1.5 billion. The money funded SpaceX and Tesla — and the X.com domain later came back as the home of X.

Milestones

  • ▲Merged with Confinity (March 2000)
  • ▲Sold to eBay for US$1.5 billion (2002)

More from the Musk universe

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X.com / PayPal (1999–2002) — Elon Musk’s role | Follow Musk to Pluto