The libertarian who kicked Elon Musk out of PayPal

Peter Thiel was infamously revealed as a New Zealand citizen. (Image: Getty)

Fri, 24 Sep 2021

From office space above a stationery shop and a French-themed bakery in California’s Palo Alto, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel built a business that changed commerce.But it wasn’t the same office. In 1999 there were so many financial-payment start-ups in Silicon Valley that Musk and Thiel were running competitors from the same floor of the same anonymous building.Musk had more money. Thiel had a better product. Musk’s X.com was financed by Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s venture capital legends. A quirky South Africa...

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