To finance PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla, Elon Musk used PayPal.
In addition to his engagement with Paypal and SpaceX, Musk’s net worth is linked to Tesla’s stock price increases.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Elon Musk is now the world’s richest man, surpassing Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Aside from the rise in Tesla’s stock price over the past year, Musk’s participation with Paypal and SpaceX helped him achieve his present financial position of $208 billion, according to Bloomberg. Tesla’s market value has risen dramatically since January. Aside from the increasing Tesla stock price, Musk has also benefited from his partnerships with PayPal and SpaceX, which have boosted his wealth from $80 billion to nearly $800 billion since January 2020.
The South African-born Elon Musk grew up reading books and learning computers. He is the oldest of three children and has dual citizenship with Canada and the US. Musk came to Silicon Valley in 1995 and enrolled at Stanford University for a Ph.D. program. Musk and his brother decided to establish a company called Zip2, an online map directory. Compaq paid $307 million for Zip2 in 1999. When X.com merged with Confinity in 2000, Musk created PayPal.
PayPal was purchased by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. Tesla CEO Elon Musk suddenly owned $165 million worth of eBay shares after becoming PayPal’s biggest stakeholder (11%). Musk started SpaceX in 2002 to develop commercial spaceships. His ultimate aim is to colonize Mars since he thinks humanity’s long-term existence depends on it. Musk built and led a staff of rocket scientists at SpaceX, bringing the business to the level of NASA despite not having an aeronautical engineering background. NASA entrusted SpaceX with cargo delivery to the International Space Station back in 2008. However, Morgan Stanley values SpaceX at above $100 billion.
NASA approved SpaceX to launch Starlink satellites to provide internet connectivity. So although Starlink increases competition in densely populated regions, it also makes internet more accessible in rural places. One estimate puts Starlink’s yearly cash flow at up to $24 billion by 2040, based on its current value.
However, Musk did not join the business until 2004, when he contributed $30 million and became chairman of the board. Tesla has significant financial problems even after releasing its first consumer product, the Roadster, in 2008. 10% of the business was sold to Daimler for $10 million, while the Department of Energy loaned it $465 million. At the time of its IPO, Tesla raised $226 million from its NASDAQ listing at $17 per share. Musk became the world’s wealthiest man after Tesla suffered losses in 2019 and 2020.
Elon Musk is best known as co-founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, but he also helped establish PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL), which evolved out of his X.com online banking business.
“I believe X.com might be a multi-billion-dollar bonanza,” Musk said CNN in 1999, as he received a McLaren F1 that he subsequently wrecked.
Musk wasn’t entirely incorrect. X.com combined with Confinity to become PayPal, now worth $307 billion.
Elon Musk co-founded PayPal.
Musk founded PayPal. Musk co-founded Zip2, a searchable company directory, with his brother when he was 24. Four years later, they sold Zip2 for $307 million. Musk invested the $22 million profit in X.com, an online bank.
His use of PayPal profits to create Tesla and SpaceX was virtually a foreshadowing of his use of PayPal earnings to build Tesla and SpaceX. “I haven’t taken my wins and spent a lot of them, but I have placed nearly all of them into a new game.”
According to Fast Company, Max Levchin and Peter Thiel had founded Confinity, which built an online payment system named PayPal. Confinity joined with Musk’s X.com in March 2000, and the business was renamed PayPal.
Mr Musk’s PayPal pay
The “PayPal Mafia” made a fortune when eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion in 2002. They utilized the money to create LinkedIn, YouTube, Palantir, and Yelp.
Musk used his PayPal payment to start Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity, a solar panel business that is now a Tesla subsidiary.
Musk told HuffPost that his PayPal purchase netted him $180 million. “I invested $100M in SpaceX, $70M in Tesla, and $10M in Solar City. I had to borrow rent.”
Is Elon Musk a PayPal owner?
Musk doesn’t appear to hold PayPal shares. In 2018, he stated that he solely owned Tesla.
“I believe one of the greatest misconceptions is that I am not an investor,” Musk remarked at the time, according to CNBC. “People sometimes assume I am an investor or buy stuff. I don’t own anything. Tesla is the only public security I own.”
Institutions own 82.3% of PayPal, according to Nasdaq. Institutional investors include Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street, Fidelity Investments, and T. Rowe Price.
In 2008, Elon Musk spent his entire fortune saving Tesla.
Elon Musk reminded everyone on Twitter last night that he risked his whole wealth to make Tesla the success that it is today. Musk went from living on borrowed money in 2008 to being worth $21 billion today, and he is the CEO of two of the most cutting-edge businesses on the planet: Tesla and SpaceX.
In response to a Twitter user, the 47-year-old entrepreneur confirmed:
From being penniless to being a multi-billionaire
Elon Musk earned a life-changing $180 million when he sold his stake in PayPal to eBay. Musk, on the other hand, chose to invest his $180 million bonus into his three new businesses, Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity, rather than enjoying the high life.
Despite receiving a $180 million payout, Musk was unable to pay his bills and was forced to go into bankruptcy. In 2008, he found himself in the midst of a divorce process and reliant on loans from friends to make ends meet. Despite the fact that he was a freshly minted billionaire, all of his money was invested in Tesla and SpaceX.
“It was the worst year of my life.”
Musk said that 2008 was the worst year of his life in an open interview.
“I remember waking up on the Sunday before Christmas in 2008 and thinking to myself,’man, I never believed I was someone who could ever be capable of having a nervous breakdown.’ I felt like this was the closest I’d ever been to achieving my goals. “Because it seemed to be beautiful, fairly dark.”
Musk’s own brother verified his family’s terrible financial situation:
“Oh, yes. [He] owes money. “I’m more than broke.”
NASA has saved Elon Musk’s career.
NASA came to Musk’s rescue in the closing hours of his worst year ever. Musk was given a $1.5 billion contract by NASA only a few days before Christmas.
On Christmas Eve, Tesla investors also decided to contribute more funds to the project. The lifeline provided for both projects contributed to Elon Musk’s ascent to billionaire status.
Tesla had its first public offering on the stock market two years later, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Musk does not get any compensation from Tesla.
Despite having a net worth of $21 billion, Musk does not get a salary from Tesla. He is well-known for agreeing to a contract with the Tesla board of directors, under which he would earn stock options if he meets certain goals.
If Tesla achieves Musk’s projected $100 billion market value, the incentive package may make Musk the wealthiest person on the world. Tesla stock, on the other hand, remains volatile, with Musk losing $1 billion in a single day earlier this month as a result of an ongoing dispute with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Tesla and SpaceX Make a Comeback
Despite having been close to bankruptcy, SpaceX is still in business, having just launched the world’s most powerful rocket. Meanwhile, Tesla is on pace to produce 400,000 vehicles this year, with full self-driving capabilities expected in the near future.
4 Business Building Lessons from Elon Musk on How to Start a Company
The Long Island Expressway was the site of SpaceX’s inception.
It was the year 2000, and Elon Musk had just been fired from his job as CEO of PayPal after a lengthy legal battle. He was riding along on the highway with his buddy and fellow entrepreneur Adeo Ressi when he was confronted with the question:
What exactly was Musk planning to do next?
As Elon Musk tells Eric Berger, author of the new book Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX, “I told Adeo it I had always been interested in space, but I didn’t believe that was something a private person could do anything about.” Musk went to NASA’s website later that day, still thinking about the discussion, in search of plans for humans to go to Mars. Musk was not disappointed.
He was unable to locate any.
So, after spending some more time researching the issue in greater detail, Musk came up with his own solution.
What follows in Liftoff is a bizarre (but interesting) trip through Musk’s life as he created a business with the goal of attempting to tackle some very difficult issues.
And while many prospective entrepreneurs aren’t attempting to solve the problem of interplanetary travel, they may still benefit from Berger’s insider account of the early days of SpaceX, an account that Musk himself has supported and praised.
Just from the first chapter, here are a few important takeaways to consider.
Don’t start with a product or a service.
Begin by presenting an issue.
At the outset, SpaceX did not begin developing its own rockets. Even in the early stages, Musk and his advisors went to Russia (twice) in an attempt to get a refurbished intercontinental ballistic missile, which they were unsuccessful in obtaining.
The issue, according to Berger, was that the Russians had little regard for Musk’s leadership. Musk, in their opinion, had absolutely no clue what he was getting himself into. As a result, they gave him their rockets at an exorbitant markup.
“I was curious as to how much work it would take to construct our own rocket,” Musk remarked.
Musk and SpaceX had accomplished exactly that a few years later.
Do your homework, since Musk wanted to establish his seriousness first. Musk, who was a voracious learner, already had Ivy League degrees in economics and physics. He took the mindset of that student and applied it to his new field of interest.
In the words of Berger, Musk had been reading everything he could get his hands on on rockets, “from ancient Soviet technical manuals to John Drury Clark’s famous book on propellants, Ignition!” Musk had been reading everything he could get his hands on about rockets. Furthermore, Musk was well aware that previous entrepreneurs had tried their hand at rocket science and failed miserably. As a result, he investigated what they had done, hoping to learn from their errors and avoid repeating them.
At this point, Musk was prepared to begin meeting with rocket experts. All the way, he maintained his “learn-it-all” attitude, asking thoughtful questions and paying close attention to the replies.
Accept the difficulties that come your way.
Musk’s initial goal was to excite the public, which would in turn result in more funding for NASA. However, the more Musk studied, the more he recognized that NASA had its own issues, in addition to those relating to financing.
According to Musk, “I started to realize why things were so costly.” “I had a look around at the horses that NASA had in the stable. I was impressed with what I saw. And when you’re dealing with stallion companies like Boeing and Lockheed, you’re screwed. Those horses are in poor condition. I was well aware that Mars Oasis would not be sufficient.”
As a result, Musk started to consider on a larger scale.
If Musk is successful in lowering the cost of space travel, there will be more possibilities for people. And if SpaceX is able to break through the red tape that has hampered NASA’s efforts, it may open the path for the agency to explore such possibilities.
Not everyone shared the same level of enthusiasm.
Berger recounts how Musk convened a conference of about 15 or 20 renowned aerospace experts the following spring, according to Berger. NASA Administrator Mike Griffin had urged the engineers to go since he was a pioneer in the area and would eventually become the administrator of NASA.
In the words of Chris Thompson, an aerospace engineer who was working with Musk at the time, “[Musk] comes into the room and essentially declares that he wants to establish his own rocket business.” “In addition, I recall a lot of laughing, some laughter, and others saying comments to the effect of, ‘Save your money, child, and go sit on the beach.'”
Musk, on the other hand, was not one to give up lightly.
“Musk scoured the skeptics for the few believers,” says Berger of the hunt for Musk. In order to succeed, Musk sought individuals that welcomed challenges instead of shied away from them, who were optimists rather than pessimists.
It didn’t take long before Musk was able to track down those optimists.
He extended the offer to five individuals, two of whom accepted: Chris Thompson, a growing star in the field of rocket engines, and Tom Mueller, a rising star in the field of rocket engines.
Employees should be treated like owners.
As the number of SpaceX workers increased, Musk sought to capitalize on the feeling of pride that these people had in the company. Because they were spending Musk’s money, Berger says, “Musk provided an incentive for workers to be conservative with their expenditures.”
In his article, he says that “early employees got significant portions of shares.” It was everyone who benefitted when an employee saved the business $100,000 by manufacturing a component in-house rather than buying it from an established supplier.
What followed was a team dedicated to instilling a culture of doing great things with as little resources as possible.
To be sure, not every new business owner starts out with a million-dollar bank account, as Musk did when he started his company SpaceX.
However, almost everyone may benefit from the lessons Musk showed during the early days of SpaceX:
1. Don’t start with a product or a service. Begin by identifying an issue.
2. First and foremost, do thorough research.
3. Take on new tasks.
4. Empower workers to act as owners.
If you execute this correctly, you will improve the likelihood of your business’s success—and you may even be able to convert some of the skeptics into believers.
Listed here are all of Elon Musk’s businesses that have propelled him to the top of the world’s wealthiest list.
1. Elon Musk’s whole portfolio of businesses – Zip2.
At the age of 24, Elon Musk co-founded Zip2 with his brother Kimbal and Greg Kouri, which was the first company he had co-founded.
Zip2 is a web software business that was founded in Palo Alto and financed by a group of angel investors in the early stages of its development. It is concerned with the development of an online city guide for newspaper publishers, which will include graphic maps, instructions, and yellow pages, all of which will be executed by Elon Musk himself.
Musk couldn’t afford a house at the time, so he resorted to sleeping on the workplace sofa on several occasions. He said that he had worked all night coding in order for the website to be ready for launch the next day.
It wasn’t until Zip2 signed partnerships with publications such as The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune that the company began to turn a profit. Zip2, on the other hand, was purchased by the American information technology firm Compaq in February 1999. Elon Mush received $22 million in exchange for a 7 percent stake in the company.
2 Elon Musk’s businesses – X.com, PayPal, and others
After selling his first business, Elon Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company with an initial capital of $10 million, less than a month after selling his second company.
Because of the business’s merger with another software company named Confinity, X.com now primarily focuses on the money-transfer service that Confinity provides. In 2001, the company was renamed Paypal to better reflect the nature of its main service.
Paypal was sold to eBay in October 2002, and Elon Musk, the company’s biggest shareholder, received a $165 million payout as a result of the transaction. Interestingly, Musk stated that he bought the name X.com from PayPal in 2017 because it had a personal connection to him because it had a sentimental attachment to him.
3.Elon Musk’s businesses, including SpaceX
What a surprise, SpaceX was established just a few years ago by Elon Musk when he discovered that the price of a Russian rocket was too expensive to buy. As it turns out, Elon Musk and his team had been to Russia in 2001 to negotiate a deal with a number of aerospace firms that would enable them to purchase reconditioned intercontinental ballistic missiles from the Soviet Union. However, the contract was unable to be completed since the cost of a rocket had risen to $8 million.
He recognized upon his return to the United States that he could really create a company to manufacture cheap rockets to help achieve his long-term objective of establishing a spacefaring civilisation to achieve his long-term aim.
SpaceX, officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp, was established in May of 2002. NASA awarded SpaceX a significant contract to transport supplies to the International Space Station four years after the company was founded.
A satellite Internet access constellation called Starlink was created by SpaceX in 2015 to offer worldwide satellite Internet connectivity. According to the most recent update in May 2019, SpaceX has launched up to 60 functioning satellites.
SpaceX is also responsible for Elon Musk’s most recent accomplishment across all of his businesses. In May 2020, it will make history by being the first commercial firm to successfully launch a person into orbit and connect a crewed spacecraft with the International Space Station.
4. Elon Musk and all of his businesses – Tesla, Inc.
Tesla Motors, as the company was originally known, was not established by Elon Musk himself. In July 2003, two engineers, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, came together to form the company. Elon Musk was one of the firm’s earliest workers, having joined the company in 2003.
Elon Musk has been the Chief Executive Officer of Tesla, Inc. since 2008. As a result, whenever this electric vehicle business is mentioned, people instantly think of Elon Musk.
Despite the fact that Musk still owns more than 20% of Tesla, there has been speculation regarding his possible exit from the firm in order to concentrate on his other developing companies. Musk is still the company’s chairman and CEO. Although there has been no formal statement from this CEO as of yet.
5. Elon Musk’s businesses include SolarCity and Tesla.
SolarCity was established by two of Musk’s cousins, Lyndon and Peter Rive, who are also his business partners. Although the billionaire himself came up with the original idea and obtained the necessary funds for this venture, it was the billionaire who supplied the funding.
SolarCity was founded in 2006 and has grown to become the second biggest supplier of solar energy systems in the United States. After acquiring SolarCity for more than $2 billion in 2016, Tesla reorganized the business to focus on its solar sector. When the transaction was revealed, Tesla’s stock price plummeted by 10%, signaling the end of the company’s growth trajectory. In addition, some Tesla stockholders expressed concern that Musk was only interested in maximizing his own gain from the acquisition.
6. Elon Musk’s businesses – OpenAI
Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 with a $1 billion investment in terms of financial resources. A non-profit artificial intelligence research organization with the mission of facilitating the development of artificial intelligence in a safe and useful manner for mankind has been established.
Despite the fact that Elon Musk stepped down from the OpenAI steering board in 2018 to prevent any conflicts with his position as Tesla CEO, he continues to support the organization as a contributor.
7. All of Elon Musk’s businesses are represented under Neuralink.
Elon Musk demonstrates that he is capable of doing things that others believe are impossible. Neuralink is one example of such a system.
Neuralink was founded in 2016, and its idea startled the general public in the same manner that Elon Musk’s other businesses have done in the past. Its goal is to combine the human brain with artificial intelligence in order to keep us up to date with the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI).
According to Elon Musk, a gadget known as the “Fitbit in your skull” may hold the secret to curing paralysis, blindness, and a variety of other impairments when it is released in August 2020. Many neuroscientists, on the other hand, were critical of the concept.
8.Elon Musk’s businesses – The Boring Company
Regardless of their level of success, Elon Musk’s businesses have shown the limitless potential of a human being across a wide range of disciplines. A second endeavor of this remarkable guy in public infrastructure systems is The Boring Company, which was founded in 2012.
Elon Musk, maybe fed up with traffic jams, announced the formation of his tunnel boring business in 2017. The company specializes in the construction of tunnel networks to relieve the congestion caused by on-road traffic. When The Boring Company assisted with the Tham Luang cave rescue in Thailand in 2018, the company gained international attention.