PayPal, which was also blocked by Kominfo, is a financial technology company and online payment system that operates in many countries, including Indonesia. There's Elon Musk's intervention behind PayPal.
It can even be said without PayPal, maybe Elon Musk is not as rich as he is now. So, the forerunner of PayPal originated from the figure of an entrepreneur named Max Levchin, Peter Thiel and Luke Nosek.
In 1998, they founded a company called Confinity which develops security software. But because it wasn't very successful, they made it a digital wallet. The first version of the PayPal electronic payment system was launched in 1999.
Well at almost the same time, Elon Musk in 1999 with his colleagues founded an online financial service called X.com, where Elon is the CEO. Then, Confinity merged with X.com in March 2000, forming the business that was later named PayPal.
Elon Musk was actually appointed CEO, but during his vacation, the board fired him and was replaced by Peter Thiel, who is now a well-known investor. Apparently there was an argument regarding server selection.
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"It's really not a good idea to travel at a time when there's a lot of big stuff going on that causes a lot of stress for people," Elon Musk said of the event, as quoted by Time.
In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for USD 1.5 billion. Even though he was fired, Elon Musk, who owns a large stake, got a share of USD 180 million from the acquisition.
The money, among other things, helped him set up SpaceX to become the giant space company it is today. "Leaving PayPal, I thought about another issue that will probably have the most impact on the future of humanity," he once said.
