X.com

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Not to be confused with X-COM or X.Org.
X.com
X.com logo.jpg
X.com logo
OwnerElon Musk
URLx.com
LaunchedMarch 1999; 22 years ago (1999-03)
Current statusMerged March 2000 with Confinity to form PayPal
Elon Musk in 2015
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X.com was an online bank co-founded by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho in March 1999.[1] In March 2000, X.com merged with competitor Confinity Inc., a software company based in Silicon Valley. Musk was attracted to Confinity because of its easy payment system. The merged company changed its name to PayPal. eBay bought PayPal for US$1.5 billion in 2002.[2] In July 2015, PayPal was spun off and became an independent company.[3]

Business model[]

X.com was one of the world's first online banks, and deposits were insured by the FDIC.[4] The company was initially funded by Elon Musk and , who went on to fund Musk's later ventures: Tesla and his startup, SpaceX.[5]

History[]

During X.com's early years, a power struggle ensued between Musk and Fricker, which resulted in Fricker attempting a coup on X.com to become the company's CEO.[1]

In March 2000, X.com merged with Confinity, its fiercest competitor, the new company being called X.com. Musk was its biggest shareholder and was appointed as its CEO. Started in 1998, Confinity's product PayPal enabled users with Palm Pilots to send money to each other through its infrared ports. Subsequently, PayPal developed to allow users to send money using email and the web.

In October 2000 Musk was replaced by Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Confinity. In June 2001, X.com was renamed PayPal.[6]

On October 3, 2002, eBay purchased PayPal for $1.5 billion.

In July 2015, PayPal was spun off to become an independent, publicly-traded company. [3]

On 5 July 2017, Musk repurchased the domain name X.com from PayPal.[7][8] He explained later that he bought the website because "it has great sentimental value".[9]

On 14 July 2017, X.com was launched again, consisting of a blank white page with one "x" in the top left corner,[10] and a custom error page displaying a "y".[11][12] The site displays this way due to having nothing in its source code except the single letter "x". In December, X.com redirected visitors to The Boring Company's website, which Musk also owns. This was done in order to advertise a hat sale.[12]

X.com no longer redirects to The Boring Company, having reverted to the previous state of the blank page with one "x" in the top left corner. Subpages redirect to a blank page with a "y" in the same corner.[13]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ a b Vance, Ashley (2015). Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780062301239.
  2. ^ Doeden, Matt (2015). SpaceX and Tesla Motors Engineer Elon Musk. Lerner Publications. p. 13. ISBN 9781467762809.
  3. ^ a b Sorkin, Michael J. de la Merced and Andrew Ross (September 30, 2014). "EBay Does About-Face in Spinoff of PayPal Backed by Icahn". New York Times. Archived from the original on September 30, 2014. Retrieved March 15, 2021.
  4. ^ Vance, Ashlee (2015-05-21). Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future. Ebury Publishing. ISBN 9780753550663.
  5. ^ Hull, Dana (2012-08-13). "Greg Kouri, early investor in PayPal, dies in New York". Mercury News.
  6. ^ Publishing, BusinessNews (2016-07-20). Summary: Elon Musk: Review and Analysis of Vance's Book. Business Book Summaries. ISBN 9782511040959.
  7. ^ Strange, Adario. "What mysterious plan does Elon Musk have for X.com?". Mashable. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  8. ^ Huang, Echo. "Elon Musk just bought x.com, but it probably didn't come cheap". Quartz. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  9. ^ Musk, Elon (10 Jul 2017). "Thanks PayPal for allowing me to buy back http://X.com ! No plans right now, but it has great sentimental value to me". @elonmusk. Retrieved 2018-01-02.
  10. ^ Maggio, Edoardo. "Elon Musk has launched the 'X.com' website he bought back from PayPal recently". Business Insider. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  11. ^ Elon Musk [@elonmusk] (15 July 2017). "y" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 25 September 2017. Retrieved 25 September 2017 – via Twitter.
  12. ^ a b Iles, James (Dec 11, 2017). "Elon Musk Finally Puts X.com to Some Use". NamePros. Retrieved 2018-01-02.
  13. ^ http://x.com/robots.txt

External links[]

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