Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
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- Elon Musk has been staying at an Austin mansion and toured several homes for sale, The Wall Street Journal reports.
- The mansion’s owner, Ken Howery, is a PayPal cofounder, billionaire, and former US ambassador to Sweden.
- Musk told Insider in an email that the WSJ report is “false” and he’s “not looking to buy a house anywhere.”
Elon Musk said last year that he moved to Texas, but he has yet to disclose where in the Lone Star State he has bought a home.
However, according to a new Wall Street Journal report, Musk may be on the hunt for one — and has been staying at his friend’s $12 million mansion in Austin, Texas.
Sources told the paper that Musk has been staying at the home of a friend named “Kenny,” who turned out to be Ken Howery, a billionaire PayPal cofounder and the former US ambassador to Sweden in the Trump administration. Howery is one of the three members of the “PayPal Mafia.”
The pair have been friends for decades, per the Journal, and Musk has been staying at Howery’s home for about a year, while Howery travels the world and participates in extreme weather hobbies, like chasing tornadoes, sources told the Journal.
The property spans 8,000 square interior feet in an exclusive Austin district near Mount Bonnell, a popular hiking destination for tourists and locals with sweeping views of the city and Hill Country. It has a pool, a Jacuzzi, a private boat slip, and is gated, per the report. It sold for $12 million in 2018.
Howery’s home sits near Mount Bonnell in Austin, per The Journal.
Google Maps/Insider
Sources told The Journal that Musk and his team have employed multiple real estate agents to find him a home.
He expressed interest in the home of famed Texas jewelry designer Kendra Scott, who was open to a deal, according to the report. However, nothing materialized after Musk missed appointments to view the home.
Elon Musk told Insider in an email that “the WSJ article is false. I don’t live there and am not looking to buy a house anywhere.”
Musk announced in June 2020 that he was “selling almost all physical possessions” and “will own no house” including his properties in California. Musk was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” last week, a feature that included the line: “the richest man in the world does not own a house.”
He said late last year that he was moving the headquarters of his companies — including Tesla — to Texas, citing in part his disagreement with California’s COVID-19 policies. Musk also confirmed that he himself was moving to Texas.
He tweeted in June that he lives in a $50,000 home near his company SpaceX’s site in Boca Chica, Texas. Public records show he’s registered to vote at a home built in 1971 that SpaceX owns, per The Journal.
Musk’s companies, Tesla, SpaceX, and his Boring Company, have grown their Texas presence significantly in recent months as the tech sector — which has a long history in Austin — booms in the capital city.
Texas Monthly reported in August that Tesla — through its Tesla Energy Ventures subsidiary — applied with the Public Utility Commission to sell electricity to Texans, a move that could let those whose homes are outfitted with solar panels share power with the state’s deregulated electrical grid.
Read the original article on Business Insider
