Elon Musk has said he doesn’t own a house and has slept on friends’ spare beds despite being reportedly the richest man in the world.
In an interview with TED that aired on Monday, Mr Musk said he is currently homeless and stays with friends in the San Francisco Bay Area near Tesla’s headquarters when he works in the city.
“I don’t even own an apartment right now, I’m literally staying with friends,” said the 50-year-old, who normally lives in Texas. “When I travel to the Bay Area, where most of the Tesla tech is, I basically rotate through friends’ spare rooms.”
The Tesla and Space X founder added that he doesn’t own a yacht and hasn’t taken a vacation to defend his billion dollar fortune.
“I don’t have a yacht, I don’t take vacations, so my personal consumption isn’t high,” Musk said, adding, “One exception is a plane, but if I don’t use the plane, I have fewer hours to work.”
He had been asked by Chris Anderson, TED’s head of conference organization, about people “very offended” by billionaires before making the claims about his living situation.
“I think there are some axiomatic errors that lead to that conclusion,” Mr Musk said of the people “offended” by his wealth. “If of course it would be problematic if I used billions of dollars a year for personal consumption, but that’s not the case.”
Mr Musk has an estimated net worth of $251 billion (£207 billion), according to Bloomberg, and is the richest person in the United States and the world. He is currently at the center of a $43bn (£33bn) takeover bid by Twitter but has been rejected by the company’s board.
The TED Comments come a month after Mr Musk’s longtime on-and-off partner Grimes caused controversy with an interview with Vanity Fair in March in which she said he “doesn’t live like a billionaire.”
“Bro sometimes lives below the poverty line. To the point where I thought, can’t we live in a very insecure $40,000 house? Where the neighbors film us and there’s no security and I eat peanut butter eight days straight?
Grimes, who recently gave birth to the couple’s second child, was heavily condemned for claiming Mr Musk’s frugal lifestyle was synonymous with “poor”.