• fluxion@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      ·
      edit-2
      5 days ago

      PayPal was a service provided by a different company, Confinity, founded by Peter Thiel and others.

      Musk didn’t really have anything to do with it. He, with others, founded X.com, that was meant to be an online banking system, and sort of became a competitor to PayPal.

      Eventually they merged and Musk became CEO and highest shareholder. 6 months later the board of directors replaced him with Thiel while he was out of the country, but Musk still made a fortune with his shares.

    • Revan343@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      edit-2
      5 days ago

      How involved was he in the making of any company he’s ‘involved’ in?

      As a general rule, not very. Musk doesn’t create shit, he buys shit then profits off of other people’s work

    • Virkkunen@fedia.io
      cake
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      5 days ago

      Probably the same as everything else (except Twitter): he gave them money and took credit for everything

    • WashedOver@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      5 days ago

      He was a part of the story. The book The Founders goes into the beginnings of PayPal, Ebay, the other players, Elon being brought in, and Elon’s origins. A good read and it’s not all about Musk.