Billionaire CEO sold properties after moving to Texas

Constellation Research founder Ray Wang notes Texas has no state income tax, no capital gains tax and is a business friendly environment with ‘a lot of cheap land.’

Elon Musk’s tweets can’t always be accepted as fact – taking Tesla private at $420? – but the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX does appear to be following through with the vow he publicly made on Twitter last year to “own no house.”

Musk closed on the sales of three more of his California homes late last month, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The three adjacent properties on a Bel Air cul-de-sac sold for a total $40.9 million, according to the report. They included a 9,309-square-foot, six-bed, seven-bath mansion that sold for $29.72 million; a 3,943-square-foot 1960s Colonial with four beds and five baths that went for $6.77 million and another 1960s home with four beds and four baths in 2,963 square feet that sold for $4.43 million.

Elon Musk closed on the sales of three more of his California homes late last month. (Photos: Getty Images and Google Maps)

The sales closed on Dec. 21 and 22, according to the report.

Musk, who is now the world’s second-richest man, according to Bloomberg, made the bold promise not to own a house last May, saying in a tweet that he was “selling almost all physical possessions.” The reason, he replied to a follower, was “freedom.”

The billionaire also wrote that his girlfriend, the musical artist Grimes, was “mad” at him following the tweets.

He began listing homes for sale by owner on Zillow that same month. In June, he made his first sale: a 16,251-square-foot mansion with seven bedrooms, 11 bathrooms and a tennis court. The Wall Street Journal reported at the time that the buyer in the $29 million deal was William Ding, CEO of Chinese tech firm NetEase.

Elon Musk reportedly sold this Los Angeles home for $29 million. (Google Maps)

A few months later, Musk reportedly sold another of his properties: the former home of actor Gene Wilder. Musk had tweeted a stipulation that the home could not “be torn down or lose any [of] its soul.” Wilder’s nephew, filmmaker Jordan Walker-Pearlman, paid $7 million for the home, Variety reported.

But where will Musk live after selling all his homes? He told The Wall Street Journal last month that he had moved to Texas, where SpaceX has a rocket launch site, Tesla is building a new factory and the billionaire won’t have to pay any state income taxes.