eBay acquired PayPal in 2002 after Elon Musk had helped lead the company’s predecessor.
Musk founded X.com in 1999 as an online financial-services company. X.com later merged with Confinity, whose products included an online money-transfer service. The combined business eventually adopted the PayPal name.
Musk served as chief executive of X.com for part of this period, but was removed as CEO in 2000 while he was traveling. He remained a major shareholder, and the company continued expanding its digital-payments business.
eBay announced its acquisition of PayPal in 2002 in a deal valued at about $1.5 billion in stock. PayPal later became an independent public company again in 2015, when eBay separated it from the marketplace business.