PayPal Mafia
Updated 2026-04-04
Informal name for the group of founders and early employees who, after the PayPal exit to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion, went on to become some of the most influential founders and investors in Silicon Valley.
What made the group distinctive is not only that they became wealthy, but that they rapidly reinvested the proceeds into new ambitious projects. That was unusual for the time.
Best-Known Members
- Elon Musk - Tesla, SpaceX, xAI
- Peter Thiel - Palantir, Founders Fund, early Facebook investor
- Reid Hoffman - LinkedIn
- Max Levchin - Affirm
- David Sacks - Yammer, Craft Ventures, later AI/Crypto Czar under Trump
- Jeremy Stoppelman - Yelp
- Roelof Botha - Sequoia Capital
The 2007 Fortune photo of the group became an iconic image of the post-dotcom era.