Over two decades ago, Elon Musk was ousted from PayPal. Years down the line, he successfully launched an unstoppable SpaceX chapter, all thanks to “karma.”

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk watch the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., November 19, 2024.(via REUTERS / Brandon Bell)

Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential election victory also translated into a new win for his billionaire supporter Elon Musk. The outspoken entrepreneur, who already has a long list of career and multi-brand milestones under his belt, is now expanding his resume with politics highlighted in bold. Tapped to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk unlocked a new career high this year. However, things have not always been marked in gold for him. Last year, Walter Isaacson’s book “Elon Musk” hit the shelves, revealing how he was ousted from one of his years-old ventures.

In 2000, the Tesla founder was pushed out of his seat as the chief executive of PayPal. As per The New York Post, Isaacson’s book details that Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, co-founder Max Levchin, board member Reid Hoffman (present-day LinkedIn co-founder), and COO and product leader David Dacks were behind the “coup.”

PayPal board members masterminded Elon Musk’s ouster

The ouster was reportedly orchestrated by the board members while the X.com boss was away in Australia for a much-delayed honeymoon with his first wife, Justine. Reacting in hindsight to the scheme developing behind his back, Musk told the 2023 book’s author how the whole issue angered him at first. “I had thoughts of assassination running through my head,” the SpaceX leader didn’t hold back. “But eventually I realised that it was good I got cooped. Otherwise I’d still be slaving away at PayPal.”

He didn’t mince his self-aggrandising proclamations either as he surmised, “Of course, if I had stayed, PayPal would be a trillion-dollar company.” Despite the presumed grudges one is expected to hold after such a disagreement, Isaacson’s book noted that Musk diplomatically retained a professionally distant connection with the PayPal execs. Moreover, even though he was pushed out of the company, his equity stake in PayPal was retained and fruitfully scored him $250 million when eBay acquired the company in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

Thanks to his cool-headed approach with the original PayPal team, despite the ouster, the big million bucks cash-out set the tone for even bigger things coming Musk’s way later that year.

Elon Musk’s new professional chapter kicks off with SpaceX

In 2002, the billionaire subsequently earned the SpaceX founder tag by launching the space technology company, aspiring to establish a sustainable colony on Mars.

Landing top rocket engineers like Tom Mueller and Hans Koenigsmann, Musk’s company jumped into its first order of business, aiming to establish itself as a self-supplying giant. However, the initial projects involving the Falcon 1 rocket being launched into orbit failed miserably, resulting in an unavoidable cash crunch as SpaceX teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. The success formula was simple. Musk had to get the fourth test launch of Falcon 1 up and running successfully at any cost. However, the financial backing needed to push for the goal had already run dry.

Elon Musk and ex-PayPal execs on the same team again

In a full-circle moment, Musk must’ve really thanked his stars for not burning bridges with his former PayPal encounters. Ultimately, the Founders Fund, a venture capital fund with Thiel, Ken Howery and Luke Nosek at the helm, threw the SpaceX boss “a lifeline” to pull him out of the rut, investing $20 million in his space tech venture.

With the old PayPal saga patched up, Musk also recounted it as “an interesting exercise in karma.”

Finally, on September 28, 2008, a new wave of astronautics companies was ushered in with the coveted first-ever successful launch of Falcon 1. The “fourth time’s a charm” flight to space has since prompted the company to expand its frontiers across commercial and government projects. With NASA awarding SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract in December 2008, Musk’s company has been on to greater things and beyond.

Musk’s SpaceX tapped for Sunita Williams-Butch Wilmore space rescue mission

Cut to 2024, its rival Boeing’s beleaguered Starliner spacecraft’s risky developments – thruster troubles and helium leaks – have resulted in NASA turning to Musk for a consequential rescue mission. In late September 2024, SpaceX launched the Crew-9 mission with a downsized team of NASA’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov set to retrieve Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore stuck in space for a monthslong expedition that was supposed to last for eight days. Two empty seats onboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule have reserved return tickets to Earth for the NASA astronauts. They won’t be back until late February 2025.

With these pivotal successes in Musk’s portfolio, the billionaire looked back at the PayPal mess-up. “After I got assassinated by the PayPal coup leaders, like Caesar being stabbed in the Senate, I could have said ‘You guys, you suck’,” he told Isaacson.

Since he didn’t go down that path, he now proudly affirms in the eponymously titled book that the Founders Fund would have never come to his rescue if he had let his initially inflammatory reactions take over. In an alternate possibility, “Space would be dead.” However, since it isn’t, Musk now has reason to believe that “karma may be real.”