Elon Musk's 'primary home' is apparently a little box
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Elon Musk recently decamped from California for Texas. You might think the world's second-richest person, like many Silicon Valley émigrés who sell their insanely expensive houses and move to Texas, would buy a mansion in Austin, the site of a massive new Tesla factory.
You would be wrong, according to Elon Musk.
Musk has sold or is selling at least seven of his mansions in Los Angeles, but he revealed earlier this month he has not sold his "events house in the Bay Area," and his "primary home is literally a ~$50k house in Boca Chica / Starbase that I rent from SpaceX," his rocket company.
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That $50,000 house, the Houston Chronicle reported Monday evening, is "almost a literal box," a 20-foot-by-20-foot "foldable, prefabricated home" from housing startup Boxabl. Boxabl dropped a major clue in November, saying it had built a "Boxabl Casita" for a "high-profile" and "top secret" customer in Boca Chica, the coastal hamlet Musk's SpaceX is taking over.
The Boxabl Casita is essentially a studio apartment, and it's certainly large enough to comfortably house one person, even if that one person could comfortably afford whatever piece of real estate his heart desired. But Musk has a year-old son, X Æ A-Xii, with his girlfriend Grimes, and the box would probably be a little cozy for the three of them.
Grimes said in March that she lives in Austin, and she probably does not live in a 20-by-20 box. Maybe the casita is more like a beach cabin.
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
