Elon Musk may yet colonize Mars, and in the meantime he has vowed to shed all his earthly real estate holdings. So far so good.
The Tesla and SpaceX co-founder sold his 16,000-square-foot Bel Air mansion for $29 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. The buyer of the home at 10911 Chalon Road was William Ding, a Chinese billionaire and founder of the technology company NetEase, the Journal reported.
The sale price was 40 percent above the $17 million Musk paid for the property in 2012. Despite an unsteady Los Angeles luxury market, it was just $1 million less than what Musk listed it for in May.
Last month, Musk announced on Twitter he would sell almost all his possessions and “own no house.”
The billionaire entrepreneur also listed a 2,800-square-feet neighboring home at 10930 Chalon Road; that one is on the market for $10 million. He later listed five more houses — four in Bel Air and one in the Bay Area — for a combined $97.5 million.
Musk told the Journal last month he’s not selling the homes to raise money for his companies, but to “make my life as simple as possible right now.”
In late March, he caused a stir by tweet-storming his opposition to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s shelter-in-place order, a move that prevented Tesla and SpaceX employees from commuting to their jobs. Musk threatened to open the Tesla factory, and later said he would move his companies out of California. He eventually backed down. [WSJ] — Matthew Blake