X.com (bank)
Company type | Private |
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Founded | March 1999 Palo Alto, California, U.S. |
Founders |
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Defunct | 2000 |
Fate | Merged March 2000 with Confinity to form PayPal |
Successor | PayPal |
Website | www.x.com (defunct, archive) |
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Companies
In popular culture
Related
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X.com was an American
Business model
X.com developed and operated a financial services
Customers were not assessed fees or overdraft penalties. New member referrals were rewarded with a $20 cash card and a $10 card for each new sign-up. These features were unique for their time. For instance, customers could send money to another person by entering their email address into X.com.
History
Throughout the 1990s, Elon Musk envisioned creating a full-service online bank that provided checking and savings accounts, brokerage, and insurance.
In January 1999, Musk formally began planning an online bank while in the process of selling his company
Due 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. [10][11]
X.com officially launched on December 7, 1999, with former Intuit CEO Bill Harris serving as the inaugural CEO.[12][4] Within two months, X.com attracted over 200,000 signups.[13]
In March 2000, X.com merged with its fiercest competitor Confinity, a software company also based in Palo Alto which had also developed an easy payment system. The new company was named X.com.
In September 2000, when Musk was in Australia for a honeymoon trip, the X.com board voted for a change of CEO from Musk to Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Confinity. In June 2001, X.com changed its name to PayPal.[17]
Domain name
In July 2017, PayPal sold the domain x.com back to Elon Musk.[18] Starting in 2023, x.com began to be used for certain features of Twitter, acquired by Musk, as it rebranded to X.[19][20]
References
- ^ Markoff, John (January 28, 2000). "Security Flaw Discovered at Online Bank". The New York Times. Retrieved March 9, 2024.
- ^ Hull, Dana (August 13, 2012). "Grieg Kouri, early investor in PayPal, dies in New York". San Jose Mercury News. Archived from the original on January 12, 2015. Retrieved February 23, 2022.
- ^ Vance 2017, p. 84.
- ^ CBS MarketWatch. Archived from the originalon March 2, 2000. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
- ^ Vance 2017, pp. 77–78.
- ^ Vance 2017, pp. 78–81.
- ^ Soni 2022, p. 52.
- ^ Vance 2017, pp. 80–82.
- ^ Vance 2017, pp. 81–82.
- ^ Vance 2017.
- ^ Soni 2022.
- ^ "X.com Names Names Bill Harris President and CEO". X.com. December 7, 1999. Archived from the original on March 3, 2000. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
- ^ Vance 2017, pp. 84–85.
- ^ Vance 2017, p. 86.
- ^ Chafkin 2021, pp. 51–52.
- ^ a b Vance 2017, p. 85.
- ^ Vance 2017, pp. 88–89.
- ^ Statt, Nick. "Elon Musk now owns X.com, the defunct domain of his second startup". CNBC. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
- ^ Mac, Ryan; Hsu, Tiffany (July 24, 2023). "From Twitter to X: Elon Musk Begins Erasing an Iconic Internet Brand". The New York Times. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
- ^ Irina Ivanova (July 31, 2023). "Twitter is now X. Here's what that means". CBS News. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
Further reading
- Chafkin, Max (2021). The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley's Pursuit of Power. New York: Penguin. OCLC 1241240936.
- Soni, Jimmy (2022). The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley. New York: Simon & Schuster. OCLC 1310245824.
- OCLC 1050341708.