Whatever the price, the transaction seems to have been done on friendly terms. Musk’s tweet says “Thanks PayPal for allowing me to buy back X.com! No plans right now, but it has great sentimental value to me.” I’d be sentimental too — the $165 million he earned from PayPal, though it seems quaint nowadays, helped him launch SpaceX and Tesla, companies now valued at around $15 billion and $50 billion, respectively.
Thanks PayPal for allowing me to buy back https://t.co/bOUOejO16Y! No plans right now, but it has great sentimental value to me.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2017
X.com has been inactive, but Domain Investing noticed that the Whois had switched from PayPal to “private,” and the domain moved from MarkMonitor to GoDaddy. After the site reached out to PayPal, it eventually replied that “we are delighted to sell the domain X.com back to its previous owner, Elon Musk.”
The purchase price could come up in an SEC filing if it’s in the high seven or even eight figures, since both PayPal and Tesla are public companies. As for what Musk will do with it, he’s not saying, but this is a guy who dreams up things like Hyperloop in his spare time, so expect something from beyond left field.
