Confinity is the company that developed the PayPal website that survived that merger. Elon Musk was not on the Confinity side, he was trying to pivot his x.com bank into a PayPal clone and buy users ($30 per signup) faster than them until they merged to avoid running each other out of cash. The two startups were operating out of the same building at the time. After the merger, Musk was named CEO but ousted from the company just 5 months later, in part for being absent much of the time (including at the time of his firing), and in part because the PayPal engineers had circulated a petition to the board asking them to remove him. The board agreed.

Wasn't he also in the USA illegally because he was in violation of his student visa?

Wow, I can’t believe this is so controversial. When companies A and B merge, what would you describe the A-founders as, in relation to the resulting company?

Reverse merger makes it an acquisition not co-founding.

> This article is about the defunct online bank.

Assuming you meant X.com (formerly known as Twitter) - in no universe is there a Twitter cofounded by Musk.