12/7/2023 0 Comments Elon musk paypal age![]() "But if you want to take over the world's financial system, then X is the better name." "If you want to just be a niche payment system, PayPal is better," Musk said, according to Isaacson. Isaacson recounted Musk's confidence in the name on Twitter this week. "He'd paid at least $1 million to acquire the X.com domain name, legend within the company had it." "Musk was unmoved, possibly, employees gossiped, because of sunk costs," Chafkin wrote. He even tried to rebrand the payment system X-PayPal."Įven after the focus groups results came back that had people confusing the company for a porn site, Musk did not waver in his belief that the X.com name would work. "Musk kept championing X.com, while most everyone else favored PayPal," Vance wrote.Īdded Isaacson from his upcoming book: "Musk insisted that the company's name should be X.com, with PayPal as merely one of its subsidiary brands. When Thiel left, the employees that were loyal to him thought it was "insanity" after hearing that Musk wanted to eliminate the PayPal name during a time when sellers on eBay had turned the company's name into a verb, Chafkin reported in "The Contrarian." That kind of name branding was "a landmark achievement for any start-up," Chafkin wrote, but Musk wasn't having it. Magazine in 2007.īranding was also a point of emphasis for Musk to put his mark on the company, according to Vance. "He's one of those guys who can be larger than the room," Levchin said of Musk to Inc. That uneasy feeling spilled over to the employees on both sides of the merger, culminating in Musk's desire to put everything on a Microsoft platform instead of Unix. ![]() Musk and Thiel appeared to initially be on the same page as part of a group of employees that referred to themselves as the "PayPal Mafia." They were seen smiling together in an Associated Press photo shoot of the two of them with a computer showing the X PayPal logo in 2000.īut the two would clash over Musk's micromanaging over technology and branding, biographers say. The combined company had kept the X.com name, and Musk, who had been replaced as CEO of X.com by the end of 1999, was chosen to lead the company after the merger. The merger between X.com and Confinity unfolded in 2000 to avoid competition between the two online financial services and also to "create the world's largest secure network for instant online payments," according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "Others have pointed this out, but this renaming is stepping on the exact same rake that got him ousted by PayPal," Chafkin posted.Īdded Isaacson, "The infatuation of with the name X.com goes way back." ![]() ![]() Chafkin noted that history is repeating itself for Musk and his love for X.com, which is now where Twitter users are redirected when they type in. As Twitter began removing its name from its corporate headquarters Monday, critics and marketing experts are noting that the move was an unnecessary gamble on a hazy future for a platform that had wide brand recognition from its blue bird logo.Ĭritics on Twitter have joked that the logo for the rebranded X - one that Musk promises to make into an "everything app" - is indistinguishable from the logos of several pornography sites. Musk's rise and fall at PayPal is being reexamined as the Twitter owner is changing the name of the influential social media platform to X. "That's the problem with vacations," Musk told Fortune in 2007. The board ousted Musk as CEO and replaced him with Thiel in September 2000, according to author Ashlee Vance's 2015 book, "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future." Thiel formally renamed the combined company PayPal in 2001. Thiel and PayPal co-founder Max Levchin orchestrated a coup against Musk when he was on his first vacation in years. "Focus groups showed that the name X.com, on the contrary, conjured up visions of a seedy site you would not talk about in polite company." "PayPal had become a trusted brand name, like a good pal who is helping you get paid," Isaacson wrote. "X had conducted a series of focus groups showing customers disliked the brand name, because it reminded them of porn," Chafkin wrote.Īuthor Walter Isaacson echoed that account in excerpts he shared this week of his upcoming biography on Musk due out in September. But there was a problem that was too glaring for some customers: X.com sounded like it was an adult website.
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