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Est. 2018
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Elon Musk
PayPal
In March 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company, with US$10 million from the sale of Zip2. One year later, the company merged with Confinity, which had a money-transfer service called PayPal. The merged company focused on the PayPal service and was renamed PayPal in 2001. PayPal's early growth was driven mainly by a viral marketing campaign where new customers were recruited when they received money through the service. Musk was ousted in October 2000 from his role as CEO, (although he remained on the board) due to disagreements with other company leadership, notably over his desire to move PayPal's Unix-based infrastructure to Microsoft Windows. In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for US$1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk received US$165 million.
SpaceX
In May 2002, Elon founded SpaceX with
the goal of reducing space transportation
costs and enabling the colonization of
Mars. SpaceX has since developed the Falcon
launch vehicle family and the Dragon
spacecraft family, which both currently
deliver payloads into Earth orbit.
SpaceX's achievements include the first privately funded
liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1 in 2008),
the first private company to successfully launch, orbit,
and recover a spacecraft (Dragon in 2010), the first private
company to send a spacecraft to the International Space
Station (Dragon in 2012),[13] the first propulsive landing
for an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2015), the first reuse of
an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2017), and the first private
company to launch an object into orbit around the sun (Falcon
Heavy's payload of a Tesla Roadster in 2018).
Fig. 1 - Elon Musk
Tesla, Inc.
Tesla, Inc. (originally Tesla Motors) was incorporated in
July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who financed
the company until the Series A round of funding.
Both men played active roles in the company's early development
prior to Elon Musk's involvement. Musk led the Series A round
of investment in February 2004, joining Tesla's board of directors
as its chairman. Musk took an active role within the company
and oversaw Roadster product design at a detailed level, but was
not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations.
Following the financial crisis in 2008 and after a series of
escalating conflicts in 2007, Eberhard was ousted from the firm.
Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect,
positions he still holds today. Tesla Motors first built an
electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster in 2008, with sales of
about 2,500 vehicles to 31 countries. Tesla began delivery of
its four-door Model S sedan on June 22, 2012. It unveiled its
third product, the Model X, aimed at the SUV/minivan market, on
February 9, 2012; however, the Model X launch was delayed until
September 2015.