PayPal

In December 1998, Peter ThielPeter ThielPeter Thiel is an American entrepreneur and investor, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is a partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund and founded the Thiel Fellowship, which funds young people to leave college and build new things; his public skepticism of higher education, his support for Trump in 2016, and his funding of litigation against Gawker Media have drawn controversy.Open the full entry and Max Levchin co-founded Confinity, Inc. in California, with Thiel as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman and Levchin as Chief Technology Officer. Confinity’s product let users send money to anyone with an email address.⁠[1][1][1]

In March 1999, Elon Musk founded X.com Corporation, which initially intended to provide internet banking services. Musk served as CEO of X.com from March 1999 to December 1999.⁠[1][1][1][1]

On March 30, 2000, X.com merged with Confinity, with X.com as the surviving company; former Confinity stockholders owned approximately 46.5% of the voting interest after the merger. The day after the merger, the company closed a Series C preferred stock financing at $2.75 per share, totaling $100 million. Thiel left the company shortly after the merger; Musk served as CEO of the combined company from May to September 2000, and Thiel returned as CEO in September 2000, also serving as President and Chairman at the time of the 2002 IPO; Levchin served as the company’s Chief Technology Officer and a director from the merger onward.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1][1]

In February 2001, the company formally changed its name to PayPal, Inc.⁠[1]

In February 2002, PayPal went public, offering 5.4 million shares of common stock at $13 per share and listing on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol PYPL; the prospectus was filed on February 15. As of the end of 2001, PayPal had 12.8 million accounts, including 2.6 million business accounts and 1.0 million international accounts; in the first nine months of 2001, total payment volume was $2.3 billion, of which payments to business accounts were $2.0 billion, or 87.5%. Most of these payments then related to sales of goods and services through online auctions, and PayPal had no contractual relationship with eBay, which at the time owned a majority stake in a competing payment service. The company’s headquarters were then in Palo Alto, California, with customer service and operations facilities in Omaha, Nebraska.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1][1][1][1][1]

On July 8, 2002, eBay announced that it had agreed to acquire PayPal: eBay would acquire all outstanding PayPal shares in a tax-free, stock-for-stock transaction at a fixed exchange ratio of 0.39 eBay shares for each PayPal share, valued at about $1.5 billion based on eBay’s stock price on July 5, 2002; the deal was subject to stockholder, government, and regulatory approvals.⁠[2][2][2][2][2]

On October 3, 2002, a majority of PayPal’s stockholders approved the merger, which was completed the same day, making PayPal a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay; eBay issued or reserved approximately 26.5 million shares of common stock for the transaction.⁠[3][3][3]

In December 2013, PayPal completed its acquisition of the payment processor Braintree to strengthen its mobile payments capabilities and reach merchants who offer their services primarily through mobile applications; Venmo, Braintree’s mobile app for moving money between friends, came with the acquisition.⁠[4][4]

On September 30, 2014, eBay announced it would separate its Payments and Marketplaces businesses into two independent publicly traded companies, through a pro rata distribution of all PayPal shares to eBay stockholders. In January 2015, eBay incorporated PayPal Holdings, Inc. in Delaware as the parent of PayPal, Inc.⁠[4][4][4]

On July 17, 2015, eBay stockholders of record at the close of business on July 8 received one PayPal share for every eBay share they held; on July 20, PayPal Holdings announced that it had completed its separation from eBay and begun regular trading as an independent public company on Nasdaq under the symbol PYPL, with Dan Schulman as President and Chief Executive Officer. In 2014, PayPal processed $235 billion in total payment volume, generated more than $8 billion in revenue, and had more than 169 million active customer accounts in 203 markets.⁠[5][5][5][5][5]

In November 2015, PayPal acquired all outstanding shares of the international remittance provider Xoom Corporation for $25 per share in cash, a total of about $1.1 billion, to enter the international remittances market.⁠[6][6][6]

In 2018, PayPal acquired Simility (July, about $107 million in cash, to strengthen fraud prevention and risk management for merchants), the in-store payments provider iZettle (September, about $2.1 billion in cash and $22 million in equity), and the payout provider Hyperwallet (November, about $399 million in cash), to expand its in-store business and provide payout capabilities for e-commerce platforms and marketplaces.⁠[7][7][7][7][7][7]

In January 2020, PayPal acquired all outstanding shares of Honey Science Corporation (Honey) for total consideration of about $4.0 billion, including about $3.6 billion in cash.⁠[8]

In October 2021, PayPal acquired Paidy, Inc., a payments platform that primarily provides buy now, pay later services in Japan, for about $2.7 billion, including about $2.6 billion in cash.⁠[8][8]

In February 2022, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued PayPal a Civil Investigative Demand regarding its practices with commercial customers that submit charges on behalf of other merchants, and in August 2025 it issued an additional demand investigating whether the company’s onboarding, due diligence, and other practices facilitated fraud by merchants. In January 2023, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office opened an administrative proceeding concerning contract terms of PayPal’s European subsidiary, including prohibiting German merchants from surcharging. The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) also issued Civil Investigative Demands concerning error-resolution obligations for electronic transfers and matters including PayPal Credit. As of its fiscal 2025 annual report, the company said it was cooperating with the investigations by the FTC, the Federal Cartel Office, and the CFPB.⁠[9][9][9][9][9][9][9][9][9]

On October 4, 2022, investors filed a securities class action against PayPal in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey, later renamed “In re PayPal Holdings, Inc. Securities Litigation,” with Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec as lead plaintiff. The plaintiffs alleged that public statements by the company, its former Chief Executive Officer, and others between February 3, 2021, and February 1, 2022, were misleading, claiming they failed to disclose that incentive campaigns were susceptible to fraud and led to the creation of illegitimate accounts, affecting net new active account results and guidance. The court dismissed all claims without prejudice on January 29, 2025; the plaintiff filed an amended complaint on March 17, 2025, and the defendants again moved to dismiss. Several shareholder derivative actions based on the same facts were also filed and have been stayed.⁠[9][9][9][9][9][9][9][9]

In August 2023, a third-party issuer that partners commercially with PayPal launched the US dollar stablecoin PayPal USD (PYUSD), available to PayPal and Venmo users in certain markets. PayPal holds a full BitLicense issued by the New York State Department of Financial Services, allowing it to offer cryptocurrency services in the state.⁠[9][9]

On February 8, 2023, Dan Schulman notified the Board of his plan to retire. On August 14 of that year, PayPal announced the appointment of Alex Chriss, head of Intuit’s Small Business and Self-Employed Group, as President and Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board, effective September 27; Schulman’s resignation took effect the same day.⁠[10][10][10][10][10]

On November 11, 2025, PayPal’s European subsidiary entered into a Receivables Purchase Agreement with Alps 2.0 Partners to sell up to €65 billion of UK and European buy now, pay later loan receivables on an ongoing basis over a 28-month commitment period.⁠[11][11][11][11]

In December 2025, PayPal submitted applications to the Utah Department of Financial Institutions and the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to establish PayPal Bank, a proposed Utah-chartered industrial loan company; the company said there was no assurance of approval.⁠[9][9]

On February 2, 2026, PayPal’s Board appointed Enrique Lores, then Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of HP Inc., as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective March 1; Alex Chriss stepped down as CEO and left the Board the same day, Chief Financial and Operating Officer Jamie Miller served as Interim CEO during the transition, and director David Dorman became Chair of the Board.⁠[12][12][12][12][12]

On July 28, 2026, PayPal reported second-quarter results: revenue rose 5% year over year to $8.7 billion, total payment volume rose 10% to $486.4 billion, and active accounts numbered 439 million; Lores said the company’s transformation was underway and that it was raising its full-year non-GAAP guidance.⁠[13][13][13][13][13][13]

PayPal operates a global two-sided payments network connecting consumers and merchants; its main brands include PayPal, PayPal Credit, PayPal Open, Braintree, Venmo, Xoom, Hyperwallet, Honey, and Paidy. In 2025, the company processed $1.79 trillion in total payment volume and 25.4 billion transactions, and as of year-end had 439 million active accounts across approximately 200 markets; full-year revenue was $33.172 billion and net income was $5.233 billion. As of the end of 2025, the company had approximately 23,800 employees and was headquartered in San Jose, California; its common stock trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.⁠[9][9][9][9][9][9][9][9]

In the EU, PayPal serves customers through its subsidiary PayPal (Europe), which is licensed as a credit institution in Luxembourg; in the UK, it serves customers through PayPal U.K., an electronic money institution regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.⁠[9][9]

PayPal: Official website: https://www.paypal.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[9]

X: Public account: https://x.com/PayPal (opens in a new window)⁠[14]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/paypal (opens in a new window)⁠[9]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/paypal (opens in a new window)⁠[9]