Thursday, July 8, 2021

This is a trivial story. You may want to skip it.

But while the living arrangements of Elon Musk aren't worth the time it takes to read this, a discussion of the coverage might be. It started, as with so many things musk-related, with a tweet.
Not surprisingly, the humble billionaire bit was too good for a hack reporters to resist. Here's a representative sample from the NY Post. 
Elon Musk may be one of the world’s richest people, but he’s not living large.

After selling much of his real estate portfolio in the past year and listing his final property earlier this month to focus on his mission to Mars, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO is taking the phrase “Live below your means” to another level.

Musk, who turned 50 in June, revealed in a tweet that he is now living in a humble $50,000 home that he rents from SpaceX on its launch site in Boca Chica, Texas.
The idea that the world's second richest man cares not for material things didn't start here. It's been part of the Musk myth for years. No less a luminary than David Roberts assured us back in 2016 that "Musk is not in it for the money." (Which was pretty damned funny when you consider what was going on at the time.) Monastic living quarters fit in perfectly with the narrative.

Funny thing about that tiny house, though. Elon Musk does most of his traveling in his private jet, the flight plans of which are a matter of public record. Assuming these gives us a good indicator of Musk's location, he divides his time between LA, the Bay Area, Austin (where his girlfriend and infant son live) and Brownsville 300+ miles away.

Having a little cottage next to the office on a campus you visit regularly would strike most of us as a convenience, particularly if if usually only staying for two or three nights, but like most things about Musk, the significance has grown with the telling. 

No comments:

Post a Comment