Doyle 1

Tyler Doyle

O’Donnell

U.S. History

5-22-18

Rough Draft
 Doyle 2

Elon Musk's co-invention of paypal and sale for 2 billion dollars1 not only

elevated the level of utility the internet would be used on for decades to come, but

propelled him to be able to fund other companies such as Tesla, Spacex, and Solarcity.

These companies would go on to affect how we think of space travel, energy, and a

greener earth. Elon Musk is not only the Albert Einstein of our time, he is also a

incredibly successful businessman. After seeing the potential of Paypal, a rival competing

company with x.com, his own online banking company, he decided it best to offer a

merge with the company2. This merge allowed for a new program which would later be

what paypal is famous for. The idea was to pay people from their phones and computers,

and even at an early stage little devices the company distributed out called Palm Pilots3.

All only using the internet to do so. This idea took off when eBay bought paypal, making

everyone involved a billionaire. This newfound money allowed Elon to expand on ideas

that had only been experimental in his mind4. He founded Spacex, the world first big

privatized space travel company, just a few short months after he was granted the money.

Just a little over a year later founded Tesla a company which now has over 3 million cars

1
Mercer, Christina. "History of PayPal: 1998 to Now." Techworld. November 25, 2015.
https://www.techworld.com/picture-gallery/business/history-of-paypal-1998-now-
3630386/
2
Klebnikov, Sergei. "How Elon Musk Made Money Before Tesla | Money." Time.
August 08, 2017. http://time.com/money/4883868/8-innovative-ways-elon-musk-made-
money-before-he-was-a-billionaire/
3
Dodds, Colin. “Elon Musk: Early Life and Education.” Investopedia, Investopedia, 28
Dec. 2017, www.investopedia.com/university/elon-musk-biography/
4
Klebnikov, Sergei. "How Elon Musk Made Money Before Tesla | Money." Time.
August 08, 2017. http://time.com/money/4883868/8-innovative-ways-elon-musk-made-
money-before-he-was-a-billionaire/
 Doyle 3

on backorder and counting because Tesla can’t produce them fast enough5. The selling of

paypal made monetary transactions though the internet popular on a international level by

using eBay as a launching platform, the later impact was that Elon was able to create new

companies that would revolutionize their fields utterly and completely.

A little background history, x.com was the biggest and most influential online

banking company in the world. Developed by Elon musk, he invented a way to use the

internet for something that it wasn’t intended for. The bank was not some sort of janky

street corner hot dog stand of a bank either, it was the real deal, official. It even had FDIC

approval6, the whole shabang. Both x.com and cofinity were competing to have the best

“person to person” payments towards the end of 1999, and eventually merged in the early

2000’s7. This merger would prove some difficulty for Musk and the

5
Strauss, Neil. "Elon Musk: The Architect of Tomorrow." Rolling Stone. November 15,
2017. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/elon-musk-inventors-plans-for-
outer-space-cars-finding-love-w511747.
6
Ankenbrandt, Julie ,Quora. "How Was The Rivalry Between Paypal And X.com
Before And After The Merger?" Forbes. October 09, 2015.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2015/10/09/how-was-the-rivalry-between-paypal-
and-x-com-before-and-after-the-merger/#3ba5a0db6154.
7
Ankenbrandt, Julie ,Quora. "How Was The Rivalry Between Paypal And X.com
Before And After The Merger?" Forbes. October 09, 2015.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2015/10/09/how-was-the-rivalry-between-paypal-
and-x-com-before-and-after-the-merger/#3ba5a0db6154.
 Doyle 4

Confinity, founded by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery

in 1998 was a security software developed for handheld devices8. In 1999 Cofinity

created paypal, a money transfer service though Confinity. Elon Musk saw the potential

of a merger of his online banking company and a money transfer service all through the

internet. All of this culmination of ideas and innovation got eBay's attention. They saw

the potential of a whole way of completing transactions , and bought the now merged

Paypal for over 2 billion dollars. When eBay bought the company, this new money

propelled him to be able to open up new businesses and was able to create new ways of

thinking, which is why this event is so important.

One of these new businesses that relied on forward thinking was SpaceX, this

company has huge significance because it was the world's first formidable privatized

space travel company, meaning when it was created, it was not being funded by the

government and it is not owned the government, the company created the first liquid

fueled rocket ever from a privatized company9, which is a huge achievement on its own,

but is dwarfed by the fact that SpaceX created the first reusable rockets ever made10. This

meant that they didn't have to keep spending money on created whole new rockets and

8
Gregersen, Erik. "Elon Musk." Encyclopædia Britannica. April 11, 2018.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elon-Musk.
9
Weinberger, Matt. "The Incredible Story of Elon Musk, from Getting Bullied in School
to the Most Interesting Man in Tech." Business Insider. May 03, 2018.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-elon-musk-2016-7.
10
Weinberger, Matt. "The Incredible Story of Elon Musk, from Getting Bullied in School
to the Most Interesting Man in Tech." Business Insider. May 03, 2018.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-elon-musk-2016-7.
 Doyle 5

wasting all of that material and money. There platform is now being used worldwide,

advancing technology across the globe. SpaceX also made the first rocket to go to the

international space station and comeback relaunchable, another incredible feat that even

NASA wasn’t able to accomplish11. Finally, the company's most recent rocket launch of

the Falcon Heavy is now the most powerful rocket in the world, and its relaunchable, and

it has the capability to carry people12.

Tesla is now one of, if not the most popular car company in the world, making

cars that are energy efficient, all electric, and the are cool. When you used to think of a

electric car, you probably used to think of some small, dinky prius that no one wants to

drive besides hippies and rich, stay home trophy wives that convince they are saving the

world by driving a prius so they feel like there doing something with their life. Now,

Tesla has made owning an electric car cool. The have regular cars that are nice and

economically make sense. Tesla also makes performance oriented cars, changing the way

car companies are thinking of breaking speed records. Tesla just broke a speed record,

actually, they have started to produce a street legal car called the Tesla Roadster that is

11
Weinberger, Matt. "The Incredible Story of Elon Musk, from Getting Bullied in School
to the Most Interesting Man in Tech." Business Insider. May 03, 2018.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-elon-musk-2016-7.
12
Weinberger, Matt. "The Incredible Story of Elon Musk, from Getting Bullied in School
to the Most Interesting Man in Tech." Business Insider. May 03, 2018.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-elon-musk-2016-7.
 Doyle 6

going 0-60 in 1.9 seconds, the fastest street legal car ever produced13. It doesn’t eve have

a gasoline engine, it even has a range of 721 miles, the farthest range on any car ever14!

Back to their economic cars, they now have a backorder for 3 million plus Tesla model

3’s, their new cheapest model, base starting at just 30,000 dollars for a electric car with a

range equivalent to 89 mpg on a charge15. All of these innovations and new standards

would not be possible without elon musk inventing and selling paypal.

Solarcity has been another one of Musk’s largely successful pet projects he

installs solar panels on people roofs for free, and the energy generated from the solar

panels is then used to power his plants, and in return they get more electricity from him.

That's the skinny of it, but it is a very complex and intricate system he has that has proven

very effective. For one thing it's free indirect solar energy, which has never been done

before by a massive private company16. He is constantly updating and inviting the solar

panels to make them more efficient, and therefore better for the environment., and it is a

good investment for the people have git installed, because it's essentially free electricity.

13
Klebnikov, Sergei. "How Elon Musk Made Money Before Tesla | Money." Time.
August 08, 2017. http://time.com/money/4883868/8-innovative-ways-elon-musk-made-
money-before-he-was-a-billionaire/
14
Klebnikov, Sergei. "How Elon Musk Made Money Before Tesla | Money." Time.
August 08, 2017. http://time.com/money/4883868/8-innovative-ways-elon-musk-made-
money-before-he-was-a-billionaire/
15
Klebnikov, Sergei. "How Elon Musk Made Money Before Tesla | Money." Time.
August 08, 2017. http://time.com/money/4883868/8-innovative-ways-elon-musk-made-
money-before-he-was-a-billionaire/
16
Strauss, Neil. "Elon Musk: The Architect of Tomorrow." Rolling Stone. November 15,
2017. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/elon-musk-inventors-plans-for-
outer-space-cars-finding-love-w511747.
 Doyle 7

Elon Musk is not only the Albert Einstein of our time, he is also a incredibly

successful businessman. After seeing the potential of Paypal, a rivaling company with

x.com, his own online banking company, he decided it best to offer a merge with the

company. This merge allowed for funding of a new program which would later be what

paypal is famous for. His idea was to pay people from his computer, all only using the

internet to do so. This idea took off when eBay bought paypal from Elon Musk, making

him a billionaire. He then created a plethora of companies that have shaped and changed

the world in different and great ways. That's why ELon musk selling paypal to eBay not

only had a huge effect on the internet, proving that it could be used for many more things

other than just browsing, it also propelled musk to be able to create companies that are

innovating the world.

 Doyle 8

Sources Cited:

1. Gregersen, Erik. "Elon Musk." Encyclopædia Britannica. April 11, 2018.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elon-Musk.

2. Mercer, Christina. "History of PayPal: 1998 to Now." Techworld. November 25,

2015. https://www.techworld.com/picture-gallery/business/history-of-paypal-

1998-now-363038

3. Klebnikov, Sergei. "How Elon Musk Made Money Before Tesla | Money." Time.

August 08, 2017. http://time.com/money/4883868/8-innovative-ways-elon-musk-

made-money-before-he-was-a-billionaire/

4. Weinberger, Matt. "The Incredible Story of Elon Musk, from Getting Bullied in

School to the Most Interesting Man in Tech." Business Insider. May 03, 2018.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-elon-musk-2016-7.

5. Strauss, Neil. "Elon Musk: The Architect of Tomorrow." Rolling Stone.

November 15, 2017. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/elon-musk-

inventors-plans-for-outer-space-cars-finding-love-w511747.

6. Dodds, Colin. “Elon Musk: Early Life and Education.” Investopedia,

Investopedia, 28 Dec. 2017, www.investopedia.com/university/elon-musk-

biography/

7. Ankenbrandt, Julie ,Quora. "How Was The Rivalry Between Paypal And X.com

Before And After The Merger?" Forbes. October 09, 2015.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2015/10/09/how-was-the-rivalry-between-

paypal-and-x-com-before-and-after-the-merger/#3ba5a0db6154.