In March 2000, X.com merged with Confinity, its fiercest competitor, the new company being called X.com. Within two months, X.com attracted over 200,000 signups. X.com officially launched on December 7, 1999, with former Intuit CEO Bill Harris serving as the inaugural CEO. ĭue to conflict on how to run the company, Musk fired Fricker five months after x.com had started, and the other two co-founders, Payne and Ho left consequently. The company was initially run from a house before moving to an office in Palo Alto, California. Fricker worked with Musk when Musk was an intern at the Bank of Nova Scotia, Payne was a friend of Fricker, and Ho was an engineer at Silicon Graphics and executive at Zip2. A month after Zip2 was purchased by Compaq, Musk invested about $12 million into co-founding X.com in March 1999 with Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho. In January 1999, Musk formally began planning an online bank while in the process of selling his company Zip2. Musk commented in a 1999 interview with CBS MarketWatch: "I think we're at the third stage now where people are ready to use the Internet as their main financial repository." Throughout the 1990s, Elon Musk envisioned creating a full-service online bank that provided checking and savings accounts, brokerages, and insurance. Additionally, customers could open an account strictly with online registration with no need to mail a check. For instance, customers could send money to another person by entering their email address into X.com. These features were distinct for their time. Ĭustomers were not assessed fees or overdraft penalties in fact, they were rewarded for signing up with a $20 cash card and a $10 card for new member referrals. The company was initially funded by Elon Musk and Greg Kouri, who went on to fund Musk's later ventures: Tesla and his startup, SpaceX. X.com was an early online bank, and deposits were insured by the FDIC. In 2015, PayPal was spun off and became an independent company. eBay bought PayPal for US$1.5 billion in 2002. The merged company changed its name to PayPal. Musk was attracted to Confinity because of its easy payment system. In 2000, X.com merged with competitor Confinity Inc., a software company also based in Palo Alto. X.com was an online bank co-founded by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho in 1999 in Palo Alto, California.
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