The Swedish programmer who sold his Lego-like sandbox game to Microsoft for $2.5 billion is now trying to turn a Beverly Hills trophy home back into cash. His timing, however, is raising eyebrows.
Markus “Notch” Persson, the creator of Minecraft, has listed his roughly 22,300-square-foot Trousdale Estates compound for $70 million—the same price he paid for it in 2014, The Wall Street Journal first reported. If it fetches its asking price, it would be the priciest home sale in Beverly Hills this year and the second most expensive in Los Angeles County, behind only the $130 million Casa Encantada estate Peter Thiel bought at a foreclosure auction in September, The Real Deal reported, citing the Los Angeles Times.
Aaron Kirman and Katia De Los Reyes of Christie’s International Real Estate Southern California hold the listing, alongside Branden and Rayni Williams of The Beverly Hills Estates. Kirman told the Journal that Persson simply isn’t spending much time in Los Angeles anymore and “is committed to selling.” He also acknowledged that luxury markets nationwide have cooled, adding: “We’re not doing aspirational pricing anymore.” It’s a reality sellers far below Persson’s tax bracket know well: Across the U.S., homeowners have been forced to slash asking prices in a stagnant market.
A $70 million price tag, frozen in time
Persson bought the property in December 2014, just months after Microsoft agreed to acquire Mojang, the Stockholm studio behind Minecraft, for $2.5 billion. Persson owned roughly 70% of the company, and the deal made him a billionaire. Forbes estimates his net worth at about $1.5 billion.
The purchase famously beat out a bid reportedly involving Beyoncé and Jay-Z, and at the time it was the most expensive home sale in Beverly Hills history. The spec mansion, built by developer Bruce Makowsky and originally listed at $85 million, came fully loaded: a candy room valued at $200,000, a 2,500-bottle wine cellar, an 18-seat screening room, and a car lift to move vehicles into a gallery-style showroom, Forbes reported. Persson later spent millions more adding a recording studio and a private nightclub with a DJ booth, bar, and dance floor, according to the Journal.
Leaving Los Angeles—but not necessarily fleeing a tax
Whatever is motivating the sale, the listing landed at a politically awkward moment. California voters head to the polls today to decide on Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of billionaires who were California residents on Jan. 1, 2026. Two competing measures on the same ballot, Propositions 41 and 42, could nullify it if either draws more “yes” votes.
The measure has already reshaped where some of the state’s richest people say they live. Google cofounder Larry Page left California before the cutoff and spent $173.4 million on Miami mansions, while fellow cofounder Sergey Brin relocated to Nevada and has poured $102 million into fighting the tax. Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick says he moved to Austin on Dec. 18, 2025—about two weeks before it would have applied to him. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg told the company’s directors he intended to establish residence outside California, before Meta struck a deal to issue a new class of nonvoting stock that could help him cover a potential tax bill; as part of it, he committed to staying in California, or wherever Meta is headquartered, for eight years.
But there’s no public indication that Persson’s sale is tax-driven, and unloading the house wouldn’t obviously change his exposure if it were. The measure’s residency test looks back to Jan. 1, 2026, and its text excludes real estate that billionaires own directly. Neither Persson nor his agents have tied the listing to the vote.
From “incompetent or evil” to “a teensy tiny bit wrong”
The mansion isn’t the only thing Persson has had a change of heart about lately. Early this year, his full-throated warning against AI-generated code made headlines: He wrote on X that anyone advocating for the practice is “either incompetent or evil,” and he has long urged young developers to “Learn. Your. Craft.”
The conviction had a shelf life. In July, Persson told his followers he “just might give vibe coding a shot,” citing trouble hiring talented programmers, and asked which tools he should try. By September, he’d come around entirely. “I will admit, I am enjoying vibe coding,” he wrote. “I may have been a teensy tiny bit wrong.”
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