Who was the CEO of PayPal at its IPO in February 2002?
Answer
Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel was the CEO of PayPal at its IPO in February 2002.
Thiel co-founded Fieldlink, later renamed Confinity, with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek in 1998. After Confinity merged with Elon Musk’s X.com in 2000, the board replaced Musk as CEO with Thiel. The combined company focused on online money transfers and adopted the PayPal name in 2001.
PayPal went public on February 15, 2002, offering shares on Nasdaq under the ticker PYPL. The IPO price was $13 per share, and the stock rose sharply on its first trading day. Thiel remained CEO until eBay acquired PayPal later that year for approximately $1.5 billion in stock.
Elon Musk is the most common alternative guess because he founded X.com and was an early PayPal figure. Max Levchin was also a co-founder and key technology leader, but neither was CEO at the IPO. David Sacks was a senior executive, not the chief executive.