Space travel is wild. Electric cars are neat. Crypto is cool. But if you really want to understand Elon Musk (he's the subject of my free e-book, Elon Musk Has Very Big Plans, by the way, download here), I'd look to a specific tweet from 24 days ago.<\/p>\n
Most ofMusk'sTwitterpostsdrown in engagement, but not this one; itfloated in relative obscurity until people finally began to connect the dots.<\/p>\n
Here's the tweet, fromJune 9, in whichMusk described where and how, exactly, he's decided to live:<\/p>\n
My primary home is literally a ~$50k house in Boca Chica \/ Starbase that I rent from SpaceX. It's kinda awesome though.<\/p>\n
Only house I own is the events house in the Bay Area. If I sold it, the house would see less use, unless bought by a big family, which might happen some day.<\/p>\n
(To set the context, Musk was replying to a Twitter user who had praised him for using \"less resources than most multi-millionaires despite working way harder.\")<\/p>\n
By Musk's standards--he routinely posts things that get 100,000 or more likes--this was pretty low Twitterengagement. Most ofthe replies were about whether he really does live modestly compared to other ultra-wealthy people.<\/p>\n
But it wasn't until recently that people started to ask:Wait, tell us a little more about this $50,000 house?<\/p>\n
My friends, I think that is the bigger story.<\/p>\n
It turns out, Musk is almost certainlyliving ina 380-square-foot, tiny,foldable house-in-a-box, which was manufactured by acompany called Boxabl, delivered to the SpaceX launch facility in Boca Chica, TX on a flatbed truck, and set up on-site in less than a day.<\/p>\n
The secret was hiding in plain sight, actually, given that Boxabl posted a YouTube video last November that offered a tour.<\/p>\n
Boxabl co-founder Galiano Tiramaniexplained in the video how the housewas built and transported--and teased that it had been delivered for the use of \"a top-secret customer\" located in (you guessed it): Boca Chica, Texas.<\/p>\n
I'veembedded the video at the end of this column.You'll note that Tiramanisits next to a giant poster of a SpaceX rocket inside the tiny homewhile he talks about his \"top-secret customer,\" so this didn't exactly require Sherlock Holmes levels of deductive reasoning.<\/p>\n
Now, the big question is what kind of kind of investment Musk or Tesla might have madein Boxabl. It's a private company, and so far they're not saying.<\/p>\n
And of course, I can't vouch for Boxablespecifically. It'sa startup that I hadn't heard of until Musk subtly spilled the beans, and it surely faceshuge manufacturing, distribution, and even marketing problems.<\/p>\n
(Musktweeted back in May,before anyone seems to have connected the dots about his housing situation: \"Prototypes are easy, production is hard.\" Giramani retweeted him.)<\/p>\n
Now, of course, there's a certain quirkiness to this story that makes it fun.But consider: mass-produced, foldable housing withcomponents that can fit current standard shipping containers?<\/p>\n
That's a big idea.In fact, it'squite possibly evenbigger than electric cars and space travel, at least during our lifetimes.<\/p>\n
We live in an era in whichhousing affordability is a huge and growing problem almost everywhere--and then we find out that Musk, with a reported net worth as I write this of $167.7 billion--literally lays his head at night inside the prototype for a possible home of the future?<\/p>\n
It could be a life-changing idea for a lot of people if it ever really took off.<\/p>\n
Now, if only we can get Musk to revisit his idea of super-quiet leaf blowers.<\/p>\n
Here's the video tour of Musk's house.Don't forget the free ebook, Elon Musk Has Very Big Plans, which you can download here.<\/p>\n
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.<\/p>\n
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Elon Musk Just Tweeted a Life-Changing Decision, and ...<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Space travel is wild. Electric cars are neat. Continue reading