<![CDATA[‘What’s more important, Mars or a house?’: Elon Musk confirms he’s selling his homes]]> https://usagag.com/2020/05/07/whats-more-important-mars-or-a-house-elon-musk-confirms-hes-selling-his-homes/ Thu, 07 May 2020 19:13:11 +0000 hourly 1 https://usagag.com ‘What’s more important, Mars or a house?’: Elon Musk confirms he’s selling his homes Elon Musk on Thursday doubled down on his stated goal of getting rid of his earthly possessions, saying in an interview that his time is better spent thinking about Mars.

Musk, who earlier this week listed two of his Bel Air mansions for sale following a bizarre Twitter rant where he pledged to “own no house,” went on Joe Rogan’s podcast to discuss his decision.

Despite saying that he was “slightly sad” about selling his homes, the Tesla CEO said that ridding himself of things he owned came down to one question.

“What’s more important, Mars or a house?” Musk said. “Allocating time to build a house, even if it was a really great house, still is not a good use of time relative to developing the rockets necessary to get us to Mars and help us solve sustainable energy.”

The South Africa-born billionaire added that he has “a bunch of houses, but I don’t spend a lot of time in most of them.”

“They’re kind of an attack vector,” he said about possessions. “[Critics] say ‘hey billionaire, you’ve got all this stuff.’ Well, now I don’t have any stuff. Now what are you going to do?”

The swanky Los Angeles properties include a six-bedroom, 11-bath, 16,000 square-foot mansion complete with a tennis court and a two-story library for $30 million. Musk likewise listed a 2,700 square foot ranch-style spread just across the street that used to belong to actor Gene Wilder for $9.5 million.

Musk bought the Wilder house — a 5-bedroom, 4.5-bath with an oval pool overlooking the Bel Air Country Club’s golf course — in 2013 for $6.75 million.

“Just one stipulation on sale: I own Gene Wilder’s old house,” Musk had tweeted on Friday. “It cannot be torn down or lose any its soul.”

Musk doubled down on his condition Thursday, saying that it keeping the home in its original state is paramount.

“It’ll probably sell for less, but still, I don’t care,” he said.

Musk said that he wouldn’t sell absolutely all of his possessions, however, making exceptions for items of sentimental value and “some Tesla products and stuff.”

The last time Musk appeared on Rogan’s podcast, he courted controversy by appearing to take a pull from a joint provided to him by the host. His puff proved costly, sending Tesla shares down more than 8 percent at the time.

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