Elon Musk’s $50k Texas home near SpaceX Starbase is revealed

Elon Musk’s unassuming $50,000 Texas home can be revealed for the first time by DailyMail.com – complete with a rocket-shaped kids’ playhouse, Tesla solar panels and CCTV cameras hidden in palm trees.

The world’s richest man and new Twitter owner has sold seven Californian mansions in the past two years after vowing to offload his property portfolio and most of his possessions.

He’s also denied claims he secretly lives at a friend’s $12million mansion in Austin – insisting: ‘My primary home is literally a $50k house in Boca Chica/Starbase that I rent from SpaceX … it’s kinda awesome though.’

Boca Chica was a tranquil retirement village before SpaceX set up shop there in 2014, buying up the majority of the properties and launching giant rockets from its beach-front test facility two miles away.

DailyMail.com visited the dusty coastal enclave outside Brownsville, Texas, last week to locate Musk’s supposedly Spartan digs and figure out if the Tesla mogul – worth an estimated $219billion – actually lives there.

In the shadow of his SpaceX production facility’s Starbase (seen in background) is the unassuming home Musk has apparently downsized to after vowing to offload his property portfolio and most of his possessions

Musk, who shares a son with ex-girlfriend Grimes, built a custom-made playhouse and swing in the backyard that closely resembles a SpaceX rocket

General Views of the SpaceX Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, located just a block away from Musk’s modest ranch 

Neighbors told us the 50-year-old does indeed reside in Boca Chica just two miles from the Mexican border – at least some of the time – in a three-bed, ranch-style home a block away from his space firm’s Starbase production facility.

County records confirm SpaceX snapped up the single-story, waterfront property in October 2019 along with the adjacent empty lot and standalone garage.

Elon Musk made the decision to downsize last year, selling off seven California mansions for roughly $127million

Musk also listed it as his residence when he registered to vote for the 2020 General Election.

‘You know Elon Musk is coming because you see the SpaceX people picking up trash and sprucing the place up,’ neighbor Jim Crawford, 76, told DailyMail.com.

‘He’s never alone, he always has his bodyguards with him. He normally arrives late at night, he goes straight inside and rarely comes out.

‘He waved one time but he’s never invited us over or said hello. You don’t go and knock on his door because the bodyguards would be out in a heartbeat.’

Locals refer to the 1,580-square-foot pad as ‘the compound’ because in 2021 an imposing 8ft fence was built around the entire property.

Musk – who last month agreed to pay around $44billion for Twitter – has whitewashed the walls, planted new trees and covered the entire roof in high-tech Tesla-made solar roof tiles.

His security entourage lives next door and the 1970s property is guarded with a dozen or so cameras, several nestling high above the street in the tops of palm trees.

The three-time divorcee, who recently had his seventh and eighth children with on-off partner Grimes, has also built a custom-made playhouse and swing in the back yard that closely resembles a SpaceX rocket.

County records confirm SpaceX snapped up the single-story, waterfront property in October 2019 along with the adjacent empty lot and standalone garage

The 1970s property is guarded with a dozen or so cameras, several nestling high above the street in the tops of palm trees

Various antennas, a Starlink satellite, and multiple security cameras (including some hidden in palm trees) are seen attached to the property

Musk has whitewashed the walls, planted new trees and covered the entire roof in high-tech Tesla-made solar roof tiles

Locals refer to the 1,580-square-foot pad as ‘the compound’ because in 2021 an imposing 8ft fence was built around the entire property

‘They have a patio and chairs out there also. I saw him one time with two ladies and a small child, I presume that was his young son,’ said Jim, one of the so-called ‘holdouts’ who have thus far refused to sell up to SpaceX.

‘I don’t like rockets and I’m a little too old to be thinking about going to Mars,’ he added. ‘I’m more concerned with the things SpaceX are doing here on earth.

‘This year we’ve only had a handful of migrating birds because of the noise and the lights from the construction.’

Unlike previous owners Richard and Patricia Heaton, Musk won’t have to contend with spotty internet since his house is equipped with an antenna for Starlink, his satellite Wi-Fi company.

But he will have to drive 20 miles to the nearest supermarket and have his drinking water trucked in by Cameron County once a week until SpaceX builds its proposed desalination plant.

Musk, who has long dreamed of creating a home for humans on Mars, declared in May 2020 that he was downsizing his own living arrangements

It’s rumored the company spent around $200,000 on the property – more than three times the $62,334 value put on it last year by county tax assessors.

‘We were very satisfied with the offer we received. It truly was quite generous,’ Richard, 75, told DailyMail.com.

‘I’ve seen the fence he’s put up but you can understand why privacy is a huge deal with this guy. I sincerely hope that whoever is living there now enjoys it as much as we did.’

Musk, who has long dreamed of creating a home for humans on Mars, declared in May 2020 that he was downsizing his own living arrangements, tweeting: ‘I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house’.

Between June of that year and November 2021 he sold off seven California mansions for roughly $127million, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Musk further claimed in a recent TED interview that he couch surfs with friends depending on which city he needs to be in.

Boca Chica was a tranquil retirement village before SpaceX set up shop there in 2014, buying up the majority of the properties and launching giant rockets from its beach-front test facility two miles away

It’s rumored SpaceX spent around $200,000 on the property – more than three times the $62,334 value put on it last year by county tax assessors

SpaceX employees live in a fleet of trendy Airstream caravans and security officers zip around the site in SpaceX branded Teslas kitted out with police-style flashing lights

Until SpaceX set up operations in Boca Chica, the coastal idyll of 35 homes spread along a single street was known for its abundant wildlife, lush wetlands and unspoiled, golden beach

He has also dismissed a report in the Journal claiming that he secretly resides in a plush lakefront mansion in Austin owned by his PayPal co-founder and fellow billionaire, Ken Howery, tweeting: ‘I don’t live there and am not looking to buy a house anywhere.’

Howery issued a similar denial, adding: ‘Elon does not live at my home, he lives in South Texas. He stayed at the house as my guest occasionally when travelling to Austin.’

Musk’s ‘legal’ residence is in fact 170 miles south of Austin, where Tesla is based, in Brownsville.

It’s a mere 50-minute flight in the pricey possession he refuses to relinquish, his $70million Gulfstream private jet.

A chauffeur-driven Tesla is usually waiting on the tarmac to pick Musk up at the city’s airfield to whisk the magnate to Boca Chica, a 30-minute drive along a narrow spit of land running parallel with the Rio Grande and the Mexican border.

Musk remains a polarizing figure for the last few ‘holdouts’ in Boca Chica, however – including Trump-supporter and retired finance chief Rosemarie Workman, 74.

She’s thrilled the self-proclaimed ‘free speech absolutist’ has vowed to make Twitter less hostile to conservatives but hates what SpaceX has done to her retirement oasis.

Locals lamented that the small village ‘used to be such a peaceful area’ before SpaceX came to town 

Musk remains a polarizing figure for the last few ‘holdouts’ in Boca Chica, but some locals appear to have embraced the billionaire

SpaceX solar panels and satellites are constructed in Boca Chica Village

‘The term holdout is offensive – we were here first,’ bristled Rosemarie, who has owned the house opposite Musk for the past 20 years and splits her time between Texas and her native Minnesota.

Until SpaceX set up operations in Boca Chica, the coastal idyll of 35 homes spread along a single street was known for its abundant wildlife, lush wetlands and unspoiled, golden beach.

The company supposedly offered residents three times the going rate for their homes but some complained that it undervalued the properties to start with and barely offered them the true value.

Nevertheless, SpaceX now owns all but nine of the houses, painting everything it acquires in the same whitewashed, futuristic color scheme and turning the buildings into accommodation blocks for employees.

‘This used to be such a peaceful area. We knew all the neighbors, once a week we had game night and we filled two tables. Now we see new faces every week,’ Rosemarie lamented.

‘Musk put a big fence around his house and completely ruined everyone’s views of the bay. But what can we do about it? He’s a billionaire.

‘I came here for one reason, retirement. If he’s the richest man in the world, surely he could have made a fair offer.’

Today the neighborhood is teeming with construction workers as well as scores of space travel fanatics who flock to Boca Chica to take pics of Musk’s gargantuan rockets.

SpaceX employees live in a fleet of trendy Airstream caravans and security officers zip around the site in SpaceX branded Teslas kitted out with police-style flashing lights.

Rosemarie and her husband Jim suspect Musk’s interplanetary mission will eventually outgrow the village and he’ll turn it into a space-themed resort instead.

‘People are constantly coming here from all over the world. We call them the space nuts,’ she laughed.

‘One of them came over to us and offered to buy the house. We’ve had two offers this month.

‘It’s easy, we say, the price starts at a million. We never hear back.’

Elon Musk officially owns no homes: Tesla CEO last year offloaded his $127M real estate portfolio across California

FRESH OUT OF BEL AIR 

Elon Musk amassed six different homes in LA’s ritzy Bel Air neighborhood before offloading them over two years to downsize his life. The properties included 10930 Chalon Road, where legendary actor Gene Wilder lived for three decades before his death in 2016. 

Musk turned the five-bed mansion into a private school before putting it on the market last year. ‘Just one stipulation on sale,’ he told potential buyers. 

‘I own Gene Wilder’s old house. It cannot be torn down or lose any its soul.’ 

The property sold for $7million last October, slightly more than Musk paid. 

Four of the six homes were sold to Kirill Evstratov, founder and CEO of tech company Unlimint, for a total of $62 million.

Evstratov told the Wall Street Journal he hoped to combine them into one huge mega pad, spanning two streets.

Musk paid $6.4 million for this white Colonial home in a Bel Air cul-de-sac on Somera Road next to his other properties

The aerial photo above marks the six homes Musk owned on adjacent streets in the upscale Bel Air neighborhood

SILICON VALLEY SELLOFF 

Musk’s epic uncluttering spree concluded late last year with the sale of his 47-acre Silicon Valley Guignécourt estate for $30m. 

The 16,000-square foot retreat in Hillsborough, California, boasts seven bedrooms, seven baths, a grand ballroom and a fancy cocktail bar with retractable library shelves. It was built in 1912 by Count Christian de Guigné, a member of French nobility who moved to the Golden State after marrying a local Gold Rush heiress. 

After completing the sale Musk had netted around $127million for all seven properties, making a $25million profit. But he told podcaster Joe Rogan he was selling up to defuse criticism of his intergalactic fortune. 

‘I think possessions kinda weigh you down. And they’re kind of an attack vector,’ Musk said. 

‘People say, “Hey, billionaire, you got all this stuff.” Well, now I don’t have the stuff — now what are you gonna do?’

Elon Musk sold his Silicon Valley estate for $30million, the last of his seven California homes, and moved to Texas. This 109-year-old European style home sits on 47 acres of land south of San Francisco

LIVING IN A BOX 

The visionary entrepreneur who dreams of moving to Mars was briefly rumored to be living in the sort of pod-like accommodation you might one day expect to see on the Red Planet. 

Reports emerged last year that the mogul had moved into 375-square-foot modular home made by the company Boxabl, that was spotted close to his SpaceX facility in Boca Chica. 

Musk fan blog Teslarati reported that the model Musk was renting was a mass-produced 20-foot-by-20-foot ‘foldable prefabricated home’ named the Boxabl Casita. 

The billionaire took to Twitter afterwards, however, to say: ‘I’ve actually been living in a $50k house in south Texas for the past 2 years, not Boxabl (cool product tho). Feels more homey to live in a small house.’

A model layout of a Boxabl Casita)

WATER LOAD OF NONSENSE

Musk was equally dismissive of claims he secretly resides in a plush lakefront mansion in Austin owned by his PayPal co-founder and fellow billionaire, Ken Howery.

‘I don’t live there and am not looking to buy a house anywhere,’ he tweeted in response to last December’s report in the Wall Street Journal.

Howery issued a similar denial, adding: ‘Elon does not live at my home, he lives in South Texas. He stayed at the house as my guest occasionally when traveling to Austin.’

Musk’s ‘legal’ residence is in fact 170 miles south of Austin, where Tesla is based, in Boca Chica, outside Brownsville, according to county records and neighbors.

The SpaceX magnate further claimed in a recent TED interview that he couch surfs with friends depending on which city he needs to be in.

The Wall Street Journal reported in December Musk had actually been staying in a mansion in Austin owned by his PayPal cofounder Ken Howery