When he’s not building rockets or planning a Mars colony or disrupting the auto industry or going on a Twitter rampage or catfighting with Mark Zuckerberg or getting married (again) or getting divorced (again) or romancing Johnny Depp’s dearly departed ex (Lord have mercy!), multi-billionaire Elon Musk spends his free time buying real estate. Lots of expensive real estate.
Our Mama over at Variety already chronicled Mr. Musk’s latest purchase — a rather shocking $24 million off-market acquisition of an unfinished hilltop Bel Air mansion — and Yolanda herself has already told you about his previous splurges, so with regards to your limited time we’ll attempt to make our take on this story as concise as a long-winded beotch like Yolanda is able. We’ll get it over and done before you need to hook up your Model S (or Model X) for its next charge.
Our li’l Musky — who has frequently lashed out at critics who criticize his subsidy-driven Tesla car company — was born and raised in South Africa. He’s also been LA’s second-richest full-time resident for quite some time, behind only the inimitable Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong. Coincidentally, and for whatever it’s worth, Dr. Soon-Shiong was also born and raised in South Africa. So what’s in the water way down there?
Some of our astute Black Book followers may recall that Yolanda already took y’all on a stroll through Dr. Soon-Shiong’s real estate holdings, including his $50 million+ Brentwood compound and his extravagant vacation properties in Malibu and Laguna Beach. Like the good doc, Mr. Musk seems intent on creating his own personal neighborhood village by buying up all the neighbors’ homes.
The odd thing about Mr. Musk’s five Bel Air homes is that none of them — not one — is contiguous to any of the other four houses. Usually when uber-rich folks buy their neighbors’ homes — yes, it’s actually quite a common occurrence — they buy the house next door or behind them to expand their compound. Mr. Musk has yet to link up any of these properties.
Why? Are some holdouts refusing to sell to him? Does he want to stealthily take over the neighborhood before anyone suspects? Well, too late for that. Anyway, Yolanda believes he’s not even close to being done coughing up the cash.
Mr. Musk now owns six multi-million dollar homes in Los Angeles (that we know about), which have cost him a mind-numbing total of $75,995,000. Here’s a wee timeline to break it down for y’all:
December 21, 2012: Musk pays $17,000,000 for a 20,000+ square foot house on Chalon Road in Bel Air. Property was purchased in his own name but later transferred to “Callisto 100 LLC”. This is the main residence of Mr. Musk and his five little Musks.
October 24, 2013: Musk pays $6,750,000 for a 2,756 square foot house Chalon Road in Bel Air.. Property was purchased in his own name but later transferred to “Callisto 100 LLC”. Somewhat unconventionally, Mr. Musk has converted his house into an elaborate school for his kids and some children of his associates. It’s known as “Ad Astra”.
August 15, 2014: Musk pays $3,695,000 for a 3,077 square foot house on Westridge Road in Brentwood. Property was purchased through “Ganymede November LLC”. This house was briefly occupied by his second (and third) wife Talulah Riley following their second split. Following the second reconciliation, however, Ms. Riley moved back in with Mr. Musk and Yolanda believes the house has been vacant since then.
July 10, 2015: Musk pays $4,300,000 for a 2,963 square foot house on Somera Road in Bel Air. Property was purchased through “Duck Duck Goose 100 LLC”. The house remains vacant.
July 28, 2015: Musk pays $20,000,000 for a 7,026 square foot house on Chalon Road in Bel Air. Property was purchased through “Camellia Ranch LLC” and is just two doors down from his main residence. This house is currently occupied by Ms. Riley.
September 30, 2016: Musk pays $24,250,000 for the unfinished 14,290 square foot house at 954 Somera Road in Bel Air. Property was purchased through his “Alani Kalea LLC”.
Yolanda knows very little about Mr. Musk’s latest purchase. The property was never on the market and there are no pictures other than the one above, which was snapped last week. All we can tell you is what we’ve pulled from permit and property records. The property sits on 1.57 acres and has clear sightlines down to the Century City skyline and far beyond (provided it’s a clear day, natch).
The boxy mansion weighs in at — as just mentioned — 14,000+ square feet. An attached four-car garage and a full basement lurk on the premises. Also per permits, there is a guest house/accessory living quarters located somewhat unconventionally under the swimming pool.
Well, damn! That must’ve been expensive to engineer. But we digress.
Illuminati conspiracy theorists may be scared (or thrilled) to know that Mr. Musk is now only three properties away from essentially owning the entire mountainside that looms directly over a portion of the Bel Air Country Club. There are two little houses up on Somera Road that should be easy to snap up.
And then there is a huge estate with its own private vineyard on Chalon Road. That house is owned by bigtime money manager John F. Hotchkis, and we can only assume Mr. Musk will eventually cough up the $40 million or so needed to acquire that place, too.
So all we can do is to tell y’all keep buying those Tesla Model S cars and even those weird-looking Model X SUVs as well. Spend that cash. Once Elon gets your money he can buy more houses and give us grade-A fodder for the silly real estate tales in Yolanda’s big ass black book.
The Musk Real Estate Story: To Be Continued…