Musk Have Homes

Elon Musk, the high-profile billionaire who has placed bold bets on driverless cars and space flights, is no stranger to taking financial risks, but when it comes to his personal real estate, Mr. Musk uses the same strategy adopted by a number of the mega-wealthy: buy up the neighbourhood.

Over the last seven years, Mr. Musk and limited-liability companies tied to him have amassed a cluster of six houses on two streets in the ‘lower’ and ‘mid’ areas of Bel-Air, Los Angeles - a celebrity-filled, leafy enclave near the Hotel Bel-Air.

Those buys, plus a grand, 100-year-old estate in Northern California near the headquarters of Tesla, the electric car company headed by Musk, means Mr. Musk or LLCs with ties to him have spent around $100 million on seven properties.

In 2012, after three years of renting it, Mr. Musk bought a 20,248-square-foot white stucco Colonial mansion, according to Brian Ades, a real-estate agent with Sotheby’s International Realty who represented Mr. Musk in purchasing the Los Angeles home.

Limited-liability companies connected to Mr. Musk own another two houses on that same street, records show, including a ranch house once owned by actor Gene Wilder.

In 2015 additional purchases were made on an adjacent street up a steep canyon. Duck Duck Goose, a limited-liability company that shares its addresses with the Musk Foundation and the headquarters of SpaceX, the rocket company where Mr. Musk is CEO, bought a modest ranch house for $4.3 million.

A year later, another LLC connected to Mr. Musk bought a large, unfinished, white contemporary property three doors down, and then, a little more than two years later, a different LLC also registered to the SpaceX headquarters address bought a white brick Colonial next to that. All three houses sit on a cul-de-sac of five homes.

The buy-out-the-neighbours approach is not unheard of among the mega wealthy, including tech billionaires. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg paid more than $50 million for five homes in Palo Alto, Calif., while the Mercer Island, Wash., compound of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen was comprised of 13 different adjoining lots and included eight houses.

A number of Mr. Musk’s purchases appear to be appreciating. Prices have increased in the neighbourhood since his first purchase, with record sales prices in recent months, states Sally Forster Jones, executive director of luxury estates at real-estate firm Compass.

In December 2018, Mr. Musk mortgaged five of his homes (four in Los Angeles, one in Northern California) to Morgan Stanley Private Bank for a total of $61.3 million, according to recorded deeds.

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