Elon Musk is widely considered to be the richest man in the world. But the billionaire recently revealed he’s crashing on friends’ couches, as he doesn’t own a home.
During an interview with TED’s Chris Anderson, the Tesla CEO admitted he’s a couch surfer, Complex reports. “I don’t even own a place right now, I’m literally staying at friends’ places,” Musk explained. “If I travel to the Bay Area, which is where most of Tesla’s engineering is, I basically rotate through friends’ spare bedrooms.”
The businessman’s admission comes almost a year after he revealed his primary residence is a SpaceX rental property in Texas, worth $50,000. The home is only 375-square feet and features a single bed.
“My primary home is literally a ~$50k house in Boca Chica / Starbase that I rent from SpaceX. It’s kinda awesome though,” Musk tweeted last June. “Only house I own is the events house in the Bay Area. If I sold it, the house would see less use, unless bought by a big family, which might happen someday.”
The year prior, Musk announced he was selling all of his material possessions to fund his research. “I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house,” he tweeted in May 2020.
There’s one home he said he’s never planning to sell, writing, “Just one stipulation on sale: I own Gene Wilder’s old house. It cannot be torn down or lose any its soul.”
Musk’s frugal spending habits have been confirmed by his on-and-off partner Grimes, whom he welcomed a second child with late last year. In March, we reported that Grimes revealed the billionaire lives like he’s below the poverty line.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, the Canadian-born musician explained Musk is funnelling as much money as he can into his plans to colonize space.
"People are like, 'He's hoarding money!' No, he's spending everything on [research and development]," she told the publication, adding he does it for the “benefit of humanity.”
"Bro does not live like a billionaire… Bro lives at times below the poverty line," Grimes added. "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?'"
The singer later received backlash for her statements, with online comments branding it as out-of-touch and offensive.
Despite his frugality, Musk has incredible wealth to his name. He’s reportedly worth $273.2 billion. To compare, Jeff Bezos – often viewed as the second richest person in the world – is worth approximately $180.1 billion.
While he may prefer couch surfing to buying a home, Musk isn’t afraid to spend serious cash on other ventures. Most recently, the SpaceX founder offered to buy Twitter for $41 billion in cash, though his attempt has been brushed off.
Sources: Twitter @elonmusk, Vanity Fair, Complex,