To understand Musk's renewed obsession with X and focus on financial services, you REALLY need to understand the X/Confinity merger that became PayPal.
And, particularly, the Peter Thiel-led coup that kicked Musk out as CEO/Chief Strategist.
Here's how that happened. 1/🧵 #history #technology
In early 1999 Zip2, the newspaper online directory service Musk had co-founded, was sold to Compaq for $300m. Elon's share of this was about $20m.
Elon begins hitting up old connections from his time at ScotiaBank.
He says he wants to launch "A Financial Superstore" /2
Having drummed up support, he founds a new company to take this forward. He immediately buys the x.com domain off Pittsburgh PowerComputer for 1.5 MILLION shares of A-Stock in his new company, X.
Advisors express concern over X as a brand. Elon loves it. /3
He describes x.com as "the coolest URL on the internet". X, he says, marks the spot for treasure. That's how people will see it he insists.
He invests $12.5m of his own cash into X and begins trying to build an 'online bank'. /4
I find that very interesting. I agree, that x.com is probably the coolest URL on the internet. But for completely different reasons, than musk.
Two of my all time favourite games are "X" and "XCOM".
John Bull
Till