X.com / PayPal
Co-founder, largest shareholder & CEO (early)
The online bank Musk founded that became PayPal — sold to eBay for $1.5B and seeding the famed "PayPal Mafia."
www.paypal.com$1.5B
eBay acquisition (2002)
~$160–180M
Musk's net proceeds
"PayPal Mafia"
Legacy
Musk co-founded the online bank X.com in 1999. In 2000 it merged with Confinity — whose product was PayPal — and Musk was the largest shareholder and briefly CEO. The company renamed itself PayPal and, in October 2002, was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock.
Musk netted an estimated $160–180 million, which directly funded SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity. PayPal's early team — the "PayPal Mafia" including Musk, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman and David Sacks — went on to seed an extraordinary share of Silicon Valley, from LinkedIn and YouTube to Palantir.
Milestones
Musk founds online bank X.com.
Merges with Confinity (PayPal).
eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5B.