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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

Musk's obsession with speed and disdain for regulation means X developers love him, but causes worry with the financial expert side.

First Western, the banking partner, discover that accounts are being opened under fake names.

The finance peeps try (but fail) to coup Elon out. /5

In early 2000, X hits the news for a vulnerability that allows money to be moved between accounts with just account details. This is fixed, but spooks investors.

Elon agrees with investor Mike Moritz from Sequoia to become CTO while Bill Harris (ex-Intuit) becomes CEO. /6

Meanwhile, over the road (literally), a startup called Confinity is making waves. It's funded by Peter Thiel, who is also its CEO, but is the brainchild of Ukrainian Max Levchin its CTO.

Backed by Nokia, Confinity is making a way to 'beam' money between PalmPilots by infrared. /7

Need to skip A LOT here. But jump forward a bit and both X and Confinity ACCIDENTALLY create the same killer product as an offshoot of their main one:

The ability to exchange money via email.

Confinity pivot to this exclusively. X don't. Musk's goal is financial superstore. /8

The strength and focus that HAS gone on X's email payment processor has mostly been due to David Sacks, one of Elon's hires who he trusts and who spotted the huge potential.

He keeps Musk grounded with eyes on this while Elon is ALSO pushing into riskier financial service stuff. /9

But Harris (X CEO) sees Confinity and X are BOTH in a death spiral. They are BLEEDING cash fighting. He speaks to Thiel. Thiel suggests a merger.

Musk fights this. But ahead of another funding round, Harris threatens to quit, spooking investors

Elon: "He held a gun to my head." /10

The firms merge. Harris and Thiel insist the new firm (X) focus on email payments, ideally on Confinity's PayPal platform.

Elon INSISTS financial superstore is the future. When Thiel and Harris fall out over strategy, Elon persuades Thiel to help coup Harris out. Elon is now CEO /11

Thiel, and Levchin, are initially fine with this. Musk has promised to focus on email payments, and to improve PayPal first. Financial superstore a "future thing".

But over months Levchin realises that Elon has become obsessed with porting PayPal ENTIRELY to Microsoft not Linux. /12

Months of dev time, with X burning $12m a month, is lost to Musk's obsession with PayPal V2. A complete rework on Microsoft. It's BEYOND a bad plan. Microsoft servers and MSSQL CANNOT scale enough at the time. But Elon decrees it. He even decrees a launch with no rollback option. /13

Elon also orders the killing off the PayPal brand. He orders paypal.com routed to x.com. Logos phased out. Decrees it should now be referred to as X-PayPal and described as part of the X family of financial services. He's not letting the dream go. /14

This obsession with X as a brand causes enormous concern as it CONTINUALLY goes down terribly with consumers.

Vivien Go on focus group testing:

"Again and again, the theme of 'Oh God, I wouldn't trust this website. It's an adult website' and 'I just wouldn't trust that" /15

Meanwhile, Thiel finds out via X's financial wizard, Roelof Botha, that the financial superstore side stuff is WORSE than Musk has let on. X is offering credit on almost no identity checks.

Combined with the V2 fiasco, Thiel and others realise X is on the verge of failing. /16

Thiel and others approach Elon and BEG him to abandon Paypal V2, and his strategy of trying to become a one-stop global financial service. Thiel points out they only have $65m left in the bank.

Musk refuses.

They have to go for "the grand prize" he insists. /17

Thiel, Levchin, Botha and Sacks now cross the rubicon. They decide to coup Elon. They quietly gather the signatures of a lot of the Confinity loyalists on a mass-quit threat.

On 19th Sep 2000, as Elon is taking off for Europe on his honeymoon, they make their move. /18

Thiel and Levkin are board members. The other four are Musk, Malloy (repping another major investor), Moritz and Hurd (Chair).

As Elon is in the air, Thiel asks Hurd to summon an emergency board meeting by phone. /19

Over the phone, Thiel and Levkin reveal the PayPal V2 and financial issues to Malloy, Moritz and Hurd, who had no idea about them. They're sympathetic to Elon as founder and visionary, but horrified this was all done without board approval and at the mass-resignation letter. /20

With Elon out of the country, he can't work his in person magic. He insists over the phone that the financial superstore is the big win. All this is in service of that.

It doesn't work. Malloy, Moritz and Hurd side with Thiel and Levkin. Elon is out as CEO before he can fly back /21

Musk is devastated and furious.

"Sneaky Backstabbing Bastards." He describes them as, but to his credit recognises he can't fight it and presents a public image it was a mutual decision.

Thiel becomes interim (and later permanent) CEO, orders the end of V2 and a focus on PayPal /22

Hopefully you can see the roots of this whole X pivot thing now. Musk has decided that the way to save Twitter and regain his genius status is to fall back on his unrealised vision from 1999.

Build "the world's financial nexus" as he described it then. /23

I think it's a TERRIBLE idea. The world's moved on. He's doing the tech equivalent of drunk-DMing his highschool girlfriend to tell her she's still hot.

But you can see the origins now. He thinks this is the genius idea that got away. And that this time nobody can coup him. /24

Anyway, hope that's useful context. None of what's going on is surprising if you lived through it or have studied it. You just have to get past the hagiography Silicon Valley creates around it's "great men"

If this was useful you can buy me a coffee here: ko-fi.com/garius /END

@garius As a very casual observer, I’ve always seen the tale spun as Elon being the founder of PayPal, and that’s how he initially made his fortune. The whole Twitter saga has brought a lot to light!

@garius I’ve heard the same said about SpaceX and Tesla; they’re successful DESPITE Musk.

@jamieb @garius Well, after he wrote the checks I think that's true. But Tesla had given up on getting the money to start sports car production (pivoting to delivery vans) when he showed up, and space nerds had been saying we should be doing much of what Space X did, NASA wasn't going to touch it, we needed a rich person to fund it. But at some point he's become a clear liability. Those companies manage him (like letting him try no water curtain for the first Starship test) unlike Twitter.