While Elon Musk is definitely one of the world’s wealthiest people, he certainly doesn’t seem to live that way — at least according to himself. The CEO recently spoke in a TED event broadcasted on Sunday, where he said, “I don’t even own a place right now, I’m literally staying at friends’ places.”
“If I travel to the Bay Area, which is where most of Tesla’s engineering is, I basically rotate through friends’ spare bedrooms,” he continued. Musk dropped this detail when asked a question regarding the massive wealth disparity between average Americans, and billionaires such as himself:
“For sure, it would be very problematic if I was spending billions of dollars a year in personal consumption, but that is not the case,” he said. “It’s not as though my personal consumption is high,” he continued, before reminding the audience that he did own a private plane – one of the most wasteful travel methods available today.
All of this begs the question — does Musk really not have an address? Let’s find out.
Elon Musk’s Current Address
According to The Houston Chronicle, Musk’s latest real address is a literal box — a 20×20 feet foldable, prefabricated home created by Boxabl, a Las Vegas startup aiming to create affordable, modular homes that can easily be packed, shipped, and set up.
The ‘Casita’ model Musk is reportedly calling home base was teased back in late 2020, when it made an appearance on the outskirts of SpaceX’s base in Boca Chica, Texas.
According to the Chronicle, the home is set up much like a compact studio apartment, with a partitioned space divided into a living room-bedroom area, along with a fully-equipped kitchen, attached to a bathroom with a shower.
Musk confirmed this in mid-2021 — with the $50k valuation fitting within Boxabl’s current estimated pricing. He also reiterated that he does own an event venue home in San Francisco’s Bay Area, which he rents out instead of living in.
This likely also refers to the home that Musk’s (sort-of) partner Grimes referred to in a March 2022 interview with Vanity Fair. While sharing tales of Musk’s non-extravagant lifestyle, she touched upon what living with him was like:
““Bro does not live like a billionaire. Bro lives at times below the poverty line. To the point where I was like, can we not live in a very insecure $40,000 house? Where the neighbors, like, film us, and there’s no security, and I’m eating peanut butter for eight days in a row?”
Sounds like a Boxabl to me.
Musk’s Old Homes
So, while Musk currently stays over with friends and sometimes retreats to his modest onsite home, what about his previous residences?
Before the CEO famously ‘gave up’ his physical possessions in 2020, he owned several luxury properties, with media outlets claiming that he owned at least seven within California, building up to a $100 million total value. A few of these were made public that year, and two property listings were made public through online brokers.
The first was a $9.5 million home, described as a ‘carefully preserved, unique, quirky and charming ranch-style former home of Gene Wilder, the famous comedian known for playing the original Willy Wonka in 1971.
Located in the fancy neighborhood of Bel-Air, the home overlooks the Bel-Air Country Club Golf Course, and features 2,800 sq. ft. (indoor) across five bedrooms, a swimming pool, guest rooms, and more.
Elon’s next Bel-Air home was much bigger — a $30 million 3-storey mansion that covered a stunning 16, 251 sq. ft.
It came with a large master suite, a double-storey library, a family wing, a theater, two-room guest suite, a tennis court, wine cellar, swimming pool, yard and fruit orchard – the list goes on.
Musk’s other properties included a $3.7 million ‘boomerang-shaped’ house in Brentwood, California, which made him neighbors with Harrison Ford, Gwenyth Paltrow, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He also sold a $23 million 100-year-old mansion in Hillsborough, San Francisco, which was very close to Tesla’s headquarters.
So while Musk has downsized significantly, he has spent the majority of his life living in insane levels of luxury. Our guess is maybe he just got bored.
(Featured Image Credits: TED, Google Maps)
