Before Tesla and SpaceX: How Elon Musk’s First Company Helped Build His Fortune
What was the name of Elon Musk's very first company?
Published May 30 2025, 2:37 p.m. ET
As of May 2025, Elon Musk is one of the richest people in the world. According to Forbes, he has an estimated net worth of $429 billion. As previously reported by Distractify, that number fluctuates pretty greatly over the years, with stock prices being a major factor.
The question many people have regarding Elon’s empire is simple: How did it all begin? More specifically, what was Elon Musk’s first company that started it all? Keep reading as we take a closer look at the history of Elon’s empire.
What did Elon Musk’s first company do? How did it set everything else in motion?
In 1995, Elon co-founded a software company called Zip2, which offered digital business listings paired with navigable maps — a kind of online Yellow Pages for the early internet. As detailed by Britannica, the idea was simple but ahead of its time: Help people find the nearest pizza place, and show them how to get there. Elon wrote the original code himself, combining a business directory with mapping software he’d negotiated to use for free from Navteq.
He wasn’t alone in the venture. His brother, Kimbal Musk, and friend Gregory Kouri helped launch the business. They couldn’t get outside investment right away, so they lived in the office and bootstrapped their way through the company’s first year. Eventually, Zip2 attracted $3 million in funding from Mohr Davidow Ventures, though that deal came with conditions. Elon was replaced as CEO by Richard Sorkin but stayed on as executive vice president and chief technology officer.
Under Richard, Zip2 shifted toward licensing its tools to newspapers. The platform allowed publishers to offer local guides to their online readers, with The New York Times among its first clients. Over time, the software expanded to include arts and entertainment listings and curated directories for different types of businesses.
While Elon was still an influential voice within the company, he clashed with Richard over a proposed merger with a competitor called CitySearch. Elon pushed back, and the board eventually replaced Richard with Derek Proudian. The following year, in 1999, Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million. Elon reportedly received $22 million from the sale, per TIME.
Elon used the money from Zip2 so he could fund other business ventures.
Elon used part of the Zip2 payday to fund a new venture: X.com, an online bank launched later that same year. The platform’s model — digital transfers, no paper checks, and sign-up incentives — was groundbreaking at the time. In 2000, X.com merged with a company called Confinity to become PayPal. Though Elon was again replaced as CEO, the company grew rapidly and was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion in stock.
By that point, Elon was just getting started. That same year, he founded SpaceX. He would later become the driving force behind Tesla, expand into solar energy with SolarCity, and co-found ventures like Neuralink, OpenAI, and The Boring Company. In 2022, he made headlines once again by acquiring Twitter for $44 billion — one more addition to a long list of ambitious business ventures.
Zip2 is little more than a footnote in Elon’s life. It was absorbed into Compaq, which was later acquired by HP. It, however, is also the foundation of Elon’s empire. While he didn’t exactly come from poverty, he was able to use the money he earned from Zip2 to fund future business ventures.