The world's richest man began selling off his homes in recent months
Taken from elEconomista.es
Elon Musk is always in the spotlight, but with his recent bid for Twitter, he's been more present than ever. The world's richest man is undoubtedly a peculiar character, with detractors and supporters in equal measure. And that peculiarity extends to his vision of housing as well.
While one might assume the CEO of Tesla or SpaceX owns a huge mansion, it's known that he began selling his homes last year. He explained on his Twitter account that he had been selling off his properties.
Now, in an interview with TED Talks founder Chris Anderson, Musk has explained why he made these decisions.
"I live at friends' houses"
“I don’t even have a house right now, I’m literally staying at friends’ houses,” Musk said during the interview, shared on TED’s YouTube channel on Sunday. “If I travel to the Bay Area, which is where most of Tesla’s engineering is done, I’m basically rotating through friends’ spare rooms.”
Musk, a father of seven, has an estimated net worth of $270.1 billion, according to Forbes. Even so, Grimes—the mother of two of his children—admitted during a recent Vanity Fair that they lived in a "very insecure $40,000 house." The singer elaborated on Musk's financial situation, saying that at one point he had a mattress with a hole in it and didn't want to buy a new one.
Musk has also been known to own a prefabricated house near the Tesla factory. Now, Musk has said that he usually lives in other people's homes. The tycoon let slip this detail while answering a question about the wealth disparity in the United States between middle-class Americans and billionaires like himself.
"It would certainly be very problematic if I spent billions of dollars a year on personal consumption, but that's not the case," he said.
Musk says he's committed to austerity, except for his private jet
"It's not that my personal consumption is high," he continued, admitting there's one exception: his private plane. "But if I don't use the plane, then I have fewer hours to work," he said.
Although Musk claims that his residence is nothing more than a friend's spare room, it has also been reported that he occasionally lives in a luxurious mansion.
Last year, Musk tweeted that his primary residence is a SpaceX rental, valued at $50,000 and conveniently located near the space exploration company's headquarters in Texas. In a June 2021 tweet, he also admitted to owning an "event house" in the Bay Area.
But in December 2021, it was reported that Musk was actually living in an Austin mansion owned by Ken Howery, according to the Wall Street Journal. Howery, who co-founded PayPal with Musk and others, bought the house in 2018 for $12 million, when it was the most expensive property in Austin, according to Forbes.
So perhaps, with friends like that, Musk might actually need a house of his own.
