When your net worth is almost $1 trillion, you can choose to live wherever you want, and right now, for Elon Musk, that’s a trailer.
Musk, the world’s richest person, said on Monday that he’s currently calling an Airstream trailer home while overseeing xAI’s Macrohard data center buildout in Tennessee.
The billionaire has been personally embedded in Memphis in recent months as SpaceX, which absorbed xAI earlier this year, races to bring more GPU capacity online, and he says he has been sleeping steps from the servers rather than commuting.
Speaking at an event hosted by the tech podcast “All-In,” Musk described the trailer as his “palace,” prompting laughter from hosts Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg, as well as SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell.
“This is Elon, by the way, doing what people don’t believe he does: He sleeps on the factory floor. He’s in Memphis helping build buildings,” Shotwell said in response.
Airstream, founded in 1931, is known for its iconic riveted-aluminum “silver bullet” design, introduced in 1936 and largely unchanged since. A 1960 Airstream Bambi is part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art, and NASA used a modified Airstream to quarantine the Apollo 11 astronauts after their return from the moon.
The astronaut connection is apt, given Musk’s role in the American space industry as the founder of SpaceX.
Staying in a trailer rather than securing more permanent housing isn’t out of character for Musk, who has a track record of sleeping at his workplaces rather than commuting, and living in relatively modest homes.
Musk famously slept at the San Francisco headquarters of Twitter, now X, after acquiring the company in 2022. His primary residence for years was a roughly $50,000 rented house near SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
Musk also owns a prefab Boxabl unit near Starbase, though he has said he doesn’t actually live in it and instead uses it as a guest house.
During his appearance at All-In was asked why Tesla and SpaceX are still separate companies. He didn’t rule out a merger. Instead, he pointed to how much “collaboration” already happens between the two, adding that it’s hard to predict what might come of it.
Neither Tesla nor SpaceX has commented further on a potential merger. Speculation about combining the companies has circulated periodically since SpaceX filed for its initial public offering earlier this year.
Musk has long been known for an around-the-clock work schedule and minimal sleep, and the push to scale AI infrastructure, along with a possible Tesla-SpaceX tie-up, is making that reputation more acute than ever.
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