Elon Musk says he wasn’t fired by Peter Thiel, calls PayPal exit a “palace coup”

Elon Musk has rejected the long-standing narrative that Peter Thiel fired him as CEO of PayPal in 2000. In a post on microblogging site X (formerly known as Twitter), Musk said that his removal was a “palace coup” orchestrated by the executive team of the payment platform. The tech billionaire was responding to a podcast clip which claimed “Peter Thiel fired Elon Musk” but suggested that Thiel handled the situation kindly. The podcast had framed the leadership change as a difficult but respectful decision by Thiel, noting that Musk left the company with about a 12% stake. It also highlighted how their relationship later continued in business, pointing out that Musk allowed Thiel’s Founders Fund to invest $20 million for a 10% stake in SpaceX — a deal the podcast described as “perhaps the greatest investment of all time.”