
21. X.com Ultimately Became PayPal
Despite being told that his business idea was laughable, Musk continued working on the money transfers provided by X.com. His efforts finally paid off when it merged with a company called Confinity in 2000. Confinity had a financial side called PayPal, and Musk focused on building up that component.
Have you heard of PayPal? Odds are, you’ve used it in the past month. Two years later, in 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion. Musk took home $165 million from the sale.