--- title: "Turns Out Elon Musk Still Lives in a Giant Mansion, Not That Little Prefab Box" description: "Remember when Elon Musk said he was gonna sell all his property to live in a little box? Yeah, that was a lie." date: "2021-12-22" modified: "2021-12-22" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/elon-musk-mansion-box" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "SpaceX" - "tesla" --- # Turns Out Elon Musk Still Lives in a Giant Mansion, Not That Little Prefab Box ![Remember when Elon Musk said he was gonna sell all his property to live in a little box? Yeah, that was a lie.]() *\Image: Getty Images/Futurism\* Remember when Elon Musk said he was gonna sell all his property to live in a little box? Yeah, turns out that was a stretch, to say the least. As [*The Wall Street Journal* reports](), the SpaceX and Tesla CEO has quietly been living in a friend's waterfront estate in Austin that a few years ago was listed as the most expensive house in the Texas capitol — and has been mansion-hunting with multiple real estate agents, to boot. If the *WSJ*'s anonymous sources are to be believed, it would counter Musk's boastful minimalist narrative that began with him announcing in 2020 that he was going to sell the bulk of his worldly goods to live a simpler life, and ended with him selling off his final house to [live in a glorified trailer]() near SpaceX's South Texas Starbase. According to these "people familiar with the matter," though, Musk has actually been spending considerable time living in a house owned by billionaire Ken Howery, the cofounder of PayPal and [erstwhile Trump ambassador]() to Sweden. Musk and Howery, the *WSJ* noted, were chief among the members of the so-called "[PayPal mafia]()," along with the *other* PayPal cofounder, Peter Thiel. Though the report doesn't give the address of the modern waterside mansion, a bit of Google sleuthing suggests that in 2018, Howery purchased what was then the most expensive house in Austin — a six-bedroom and seven-bathroom modernist monstrosity on the Colorado River that sits on its own little peninsula and sold at the time for a cool $12 million. Beyond the huge-if-true implications that Musk was totally bullshitting when he said he was gonna recede from the materialist world, the *WSJ* report also reveals that Musk is registered to vote at a modest home near Starbase — not the [prefabricated $50K box]() in which he's supposedly slumming it. Musk is so deeply engaged in his search for an Austin "trophy property," the *WSJ* claims, that he's so far dealt with several real estate agents, toured some houses in person, and has a team of advisers contacting brokers as he attempts to buy a large swath of land that's not even on the market. It shouldn't be a big deal that the world's richest man is trying to buy a multi-million dollar mansion — but when said megabillionaire insists on a seemingly false narrative of minimalism, that makes it a headline. **READ MORE:** [Elon Musk Says He Lives in a $50,000 House. He Doesn’t Talk About the Austin Mansion.]() \[*The Wall Street Journal*\] **More Muskiness:** [*There's a Huge “Active Outbreak” of COVID-19 at SpaceX HQ*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()