“My living needs were pretty low. I thought I could live in a shabby apartment with just a
computer and not starve,” Musk confided.
International Listen to the reading3:411x”My living needs were pretty low. I thought I could live
in a shabby apartment with just a computer and not starve,” Musk confided.
In a 2015 interview on the Startalk podcast, Elon Musk made statements that surprised the
public and the media, that during his time studying at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, the
richest billionaire on the planet spent only $1/day.
“My living needs were pretty low back then. I thought I could live in a shabby apartment with
just a computer and not starve to death.”
Musk said that when he was young, he was only interested in things that were considered the
future of humanity, such as electric cars, solar energy and sustainable consumption. Therefore,
immediately after moving to Canada, Musk tried to spend as economically as possible.
“Buying food in bulk at the supermarket is cheaper, although you may get tired of the sausages
and oranges after a while. Noodles and green peppers are also things I buy regularly.”
So Musk decided to spend a maximum of $30 a month on food. “I just lived like that. It was
pretty good,” Musk confided.
However, Musk also shared with Business Insider that he does not encourage anyone to apply
the above frugal spending method because it only seemed suitable many years ago.
“I don’t recommend anyone living on $1 a day. It’s not fun. Plus, I did it in the 1990s. A dollar
was worth more then than it is now. If you do what I did then, it’s going to be hard.
When asked about the biggest motivation for his decision to spend sparingly, Musk said it
wasn’t necessarily poverty or charity. It was simply how he experienced living a frugal life on the
road to becoming a great entrepreneur.
In 2022, in an interview with Vanity Fair, singer Grimes, Elon Musk’s ex-girlfriend, also revealed
that Musk used to live extremely “poor”, even “below the poverty line”.
Specifically, when the two were still living together, Grimes accidentally discovered a hole in the
mattress in the bedroom. However, instead of buying a new one, Musk suggested taking the old
mattress from Grimes’ house to replace it to save money.
“He doesn’t even buy himself a new mattress,” Grimes said. “He doesn’t live like a billionaire,
sometimes he lives below the poverty line. I sometimes wonder if it’s okay to live in a $40,000
rental house with no security. The neighbors are free to film us. I ate peanut butter for eight
days straight.”
Not stopping there, Musk also decided to sell all his real estate and live in a small prefabricated
house of only about 30 square meters, rented by SpaceX.
“The house I live in at Boca Chica/Starbase is worth about $50,000. I rent it from SpaceX,” Elon
Musk shared on Twitter, adding that the house is located in a town in Texas, near the Mexican
border and SpaceX’s rocket launch site.
Musk’s lack of concern for money and material things has probably given him the freedom to
pursue his big dreams and goals. He is currently worth $346 billion, according to Forbes, and
has been the focus of media attention since President-elect Donald Trump’s victory.
Thus, this year alone, Tesla CEO’s assets increased by an unprecedented $117.8 billion, putting
him over $128 billion ahead of the second-placed person, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Elon
Musk’s personal assets of $346 billion are even larger than the $327 billion capitalization of
software company Salesforce.
