Before PayPal and Tesla, Elon Musk co-founded a company called Zip2 in 1996. Zip2 provided online business directories and maps to newspapers—a sort of early Google Maps + Yelp. It helped local media companies bring their services online. Musk and his brother Kimbal built the company during the early days of the internet. Compaq acquired Zip2 in 1999 for nearly $300 million, giving Elon his first major success. He earned $22 million from the deal, which helped fund his later ventures. Zip2 showed Musk’s early understanding of the internet’s potential and marked the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey.
