What was the original name of the company now known as PayPal?
Answer
Confinity
The company now known as PayPal was originally called Confinity.
Confinity was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel and Luke Nosek. It initially focused on security software for handheld devices before shifting toward digital payments and money transfers.
In 2000, Confinity merged with X.com, an online banking company founded by Elon Musk. The combined business concentrated on PayPal, and the company adopted PayPal as its corporate name in 2001. PayPal later became one of the best-known online payment services.
A frequent source of confusion is X.com: it was a separate company that merged with Confinity, not Confinity’s original name. PayPal became publicly traded in 2002 and was acquired by eBay later that year.