Before SpaceX: Zip2, X.com & PayPal

Zip2 (1995): maps and city guides before Google Maps

In 1995, most businesses weren't online yet and there was no Google Maps. Elon and Kimbal started Zip2 to fix that: an online business directory combined with maps and directions, sold to newspapers so they could run city guides on their websites. Elon wrote much of the early code himself. As the story goes, the brothers slept in the office and showered at the local YMCA to stretch their money.

It worked. Newspapers including The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune signed on, and in 1999 Compaq bought Zip2 for about $307 million in cash. Elon's share was roughly $22 million. He was 27.

X.com (1999): one of the first online banks

Instead of retiring, he put most of that money into X.com, one of the first online banks, back when banking on the internet sounded risky to most people. Its big idea was sending money to someone using just their email address.

A competitor down the street, Confinity (founded by Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, and others), had a product doing the same thing called PayPal. In 2000 the two companies merged, and the combined company was eventually renamed PayPal after its most popular product.

PayPal sells to eBay (2002)

In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion. As the largest shareholder, Elon walked away with roughly $175 million before taxes. What he did next is the part most people don't know. He put almost all of it at risk again:

SpaceX in 2002, to make rockets reusable and eventually reach Mars. Tesla in 2004, where he led the first funding round and became chairman. SolarCity in 2006, a solar panel company he suggested to his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive and chaired (Tesla bought it in 2016, which is where Tesla's solar business comes from). By 2008, both SpaceX and Tesla were close to running out of money. Both survived. You can follow the rest on the timeline.

He bought x.com back

When X.com became PayPal, the x.com web address went with it. In 2017, Elon bought the domain back from PayPal, saying it had great sentimental value. For years it was just a one-letter page. Then in 2023 he renamed Twitter to X, and x.com became one of the most visited addresses on the internet. Twenty-four years after X.com launched, the name he'd wanted from the start was back.

Does Elon Musk have a personal website?

No. He has never run a personal blog or website. He posts almost everything directly on X, and his companies each have their own official sites. To be clear, WhatElonBuilt.com isn't his. It's an independent fan site that tracks what his companies actually do. More about who runs it.

Wondering whether he actually invents things or just runs companies? Inventor or builder? Here's the honest answer →