The properties that Elon Musk bought and sold on the way to the dream of “not owning any house”

Sources familiar with transactions and public records testify that companies linked to Musk own at least three large houses with swimming pools in this luxury neighborhood, West Lake Hills. The area of ​​each of the houses ranges from about 560 to 840 square meters, and they are built on large lots on dead-end streets. All are equipped with security cameras facing the street.

● Interview | The CEO who storms the food market
● Want a gifted child? you will pay
● Closed security deals worth millions at the age of 20, and manages the super investor’s fund in Israel
● “The security system is insatiable. It is difficult for the government to put a limit on it”

Texas is one of the states in the US that does not require the disclosure of real estate transaction prices, so the sale prices of homes are not usually reported to the authorities. However, local agents estimate that between 2022 and 2025 Musk paid about $8 million for one of the houses, about $10 million for another house and more than $15 million for each of the other two houses. One of them was later sold to an LLC linked to Scott Kamera, who, according to his LinkedIn page, previously worked for Musk’s Boring Company. Kamera did not respond to a request for comment.

According to a previous report in the Wall Street Journal, Musk, who has at least 14 children from four women, purchased the properties with the intention of building a residential complex where the mothers of his children could live with their children.

The quiet neighborhood, characterized by few sidewalks, is the kind of place where the residents are hardly seen on the street. The main traffic in the area is gardeners and cleaning workers arriving and leaving the houses.

During a visit by a Wall Street Journal reporter on a weekday, close to American Memorial Day, the street where two of the houses are located was decorated with American flags. The only person seen outside was a resident walking his dog. On another nearby street, three Tesla cars and three Cybertruck pickups (also Tesla’s) were parked at the edge of the square.

Ashley St. Clair, a network influencer who gave birth to Musk’s son in 2024, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that she used to visit him at one of his homes in West Lake Hills between 2022 and 2023, and was surprised that the house and the neighborhood seemed so unremarkable to her. “In the end, this is the richest man in the world,” she said. “He can live anywhere.”

According to her, Musk asked her to move to Austin with their shared son, but later withdrew the offer. “He never explained which house it was,” she said. “He just said he would buy me a house and it would be nice if I lived in the neighborhood.” Musk did not respond to requests for comment.

The musician Grimes, who has three children with Musk, also lived with him for a period in Austin – according to court documents. According to a previous report by the Wall Street Journal, Musk tried to convince her to move into the residential complex, but she refused. She did not respond to the request for comment either.

The West Lake Hills area, which includes the city and its adjacent neighborhoods, has been attracting affluent residents for years, including Dell founder Michael Dell, who completed the construction of a castle-like residential complex for his family in 1996 – according to local real estate agents.

The neighborhood, on the hills above Lake Austin, offers large lots that guarantee privacy, views of downtown Austin and the lake, and access to an education system that is considered one of the best in the area. A six-bedroom house, located across the turnpike at the end of the street, in front of one of the houses linked to Musk, is currently offered for sale for $16.95 million.

Today, Musk divides his time between Texas and California, where the central offices of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI operate. He previously lived in California, and there he also created a similar residential pattern between 2012 and 2022: limited liability companies linked to him spent almost 100 million dollars on a cluster of six houses on two streets in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles. Similar to Austin, it was a quiet neighborhood on the hills overlooking the city, and three of the houses stood on a dead-end street that ended in a square and had no sidewalks.

On May 1, 2020, Musk tweeted: “I will not own any house.” According to him, this was part of a plan in which he intended to “sell almost all of his physical property”. He sold most of his houses in California for about 130 million dollars, and by March 2022 he disposed of all the houses he owned in the state, with the exception of one: a house in Bel Air that used to belong to the actor Gene Wilder.

However, according to an earlier report by the Wall Street Journal, even as he publicly presented himself as adopting a more minimalist lifestyle, Musk lived in a waterfront mansion in Austin owned by a wealthy friend.

Residents in West Lake Hills said they rarely see Musk, but know when he is in town because the number of security vehicles in the area has increased. According to influencer St. Clair, Musk has also previously stayed in the penthouse apartments of the condominium complex at the Proper Hotel in downtown Austin. She said that she herself stayed with him in one of them in 2023.

Limited companies linked to Musk also purchased two small farmhouses on large tracts of land in Dell Valley, about 26 km east of downtown Austin, near Tesla’s giant factory. Today there are large buildings there that are under construction.

Musk also purchased land in the east of the region, near Snailbrook, the town he is building near the Boring Company and SpaceX facilities.

West Lake Hills area

Date of purchase: March 2022
Estimated cost: About 8 million dollars
surface: 644 square meters

This is a house made of gray stone and plaster, which includes six bedrooms and was built in 2017 on a plot of land with an area of ​​about 7 dunams. It was the first house in West Lake Hills purchased by a company linked to Musk. According to St. Clair, this is also the house where she has stayed many times.

St. Clair says that she never saw food being prepared at home, and that everything was ordered from outside. In addition to that, she described that many security personnel were always present at the place, who used to stay in a warehouse-like building near the garage. The furniture and the interior design, according to her, were not unusual: “Everything was very sterile, unremarkable.”

In April 2025, the house was at the center of a heated confrontation with neighbors, who complained to the West Lake Hills municipality about noise, traffic congestion and construction work resulting from Musk’s 24-hour security system.

One of the neighbors, Paul Hamer, wrote in an email to the municipality that the quiet dead-end street began to look like an airport or the parking lot of an office tower in the city center. According to him, the tall metal gate installed by Musk “looks like it belongs in Fort Knox.” According to the neighbors, since then the winds have calmed down and the situation in the area has improved.

West Lake Hills area

Date of purchase: April 2024
Estimated cost: More than 15 million dollars
surface: 834 square meters

Neighbors and local real estate agents tell me that in this house, which has six bedrooms and overlooks Lake Austin, Shivonne Zilis lives with her four children from Musk. Zilis, a long-time employee of Musk and now a senior executive at Neuralink, the brain-computer interface development company he owns, testified last May that she and Musk have a romantic relationship and that he plays an active role in raising their children. In her testimony, she said that they “live together When they’re traveling and when he’s spending time with family in Austin.” Zilis did not respond to requests for comment.

The house, designed in a Mediterranean style, stands on a plot of about three dunams. Its previous sale ad stated that it includes a wine room, an infinity pool, a cabana (lodging structure by the pool) with an outdoor kitchen, a separate guest unit, an elevator and parking for four cars.

Neighbors say that a security guard is permanently stationed at the entrance to the house, and staff members come and go frequently.

West Lake Hills area

Date of purchase: December 2025
Estimated cost: About 10 million dollars
surface: 557 square meters

The house, built in 2003 on top of a hill, is a white Tuscan-style villa with four bedrooms. In front of it stands a stone wall, and on the second floor a spacious balcony. On the day the Wall Street Journal reporter visited the site, the landscaping company was working both on the lot, which covers about 3 dunams, and on another nearby property that is also linked to Musk.

A previous sale ad for the home describes, among other things, a saltwater pool with waterfalls, two stories of terraces for entertaining, a double-height family room, three custom fireplaces, cathedral ceilings and a beverage bar.

Hotel Proper

Date of purchase: June 2022; September 2023 (two apartments)
Estimated cost: Over 9 million dollars per unit
surface: 318 square meters; 334 square meters

Musk sometimes stays in the residential units of the Proper Hotel, a building erected around 2020 in downtown Austin, close to Tesla’s giant factory (Gigafactory). Instead, a limited company managed by Antonio Garcias, one of Musk’s old friends, owns two penthouse apartments on the upper floors. It is not clear if the apartments were purchased for Musk or if he is just using them.

Each of the units includes four bedrooms, a private balcony with a wading pool, a view of the lake and a private elevator service directly from the parking lot. According to the building’s website, both apartments feature floor-to-ceiling windows, waterfall-style marble islands (which continue vertically toward the floor) and spacious dining rooms.

Emily Knight, a real estate agent with Den Property Group, said that two apartments in the building are currently being offered for sale privately: a two-bedroom apartment with a lake view for $4.75 million and a three-bedroom apartment with a lake view for $4.9 million.

Starbase, Texas

House area: 147 square meters
Field area: 780 square meters
Value for tax purposes: 130 thousand dollars

Musk described this modest farmhouse on his Twitter account in 2021: “My primary residence is actually a house worth about $50,000 in Boca Chica/Starbase, which I rent from SpaceX. It’s pretty amazing to be honest.” SpaceX purchased the house in 2019 for an undisclosed amount.

Los Angeles

Date of purchase: October 2013
Estimated cost: 6.75 million dollars
surface: 260 square meters

The only remaining house Musk owns from his original real estate portfolio is a three-bedroom house located above the Bel Air Golf Club.

In 2020, Musk agreed to sell it to filmmaker Jordan Walker-Perlman and his wife Elizabeth Hunter for $7 million. Walker-Perlman grew up in a house in Bel Air that was for years the home of his uncle, the late actor Gene Wilder, who starred in the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Musk even agreed to lend the couple most of the amount needed to purchase the house.

However, in 2024 they stopped making loan payments, and according to public records, the property was repurchased in January 2025 by the same trust linked to Musk for $7.6 million. Walker-Perlman and Hunter could not be reached for comment.