The world’s richest man is currently living in a motor home in Memphis, and there’s a good reason why.
Despite having a net worth of $917 billion, Elon Musk is currently living in an Airstream trailer as he assists engineers in building the xAI supercomputer named Colossus.
“It’s a nice Airstream,” he said, replying to a post on his new accomodations.
It’s a nice Airstream
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 18, 2026
According to Gwynne Shotwell, the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, this is something that Musk does fairly regularly.
“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,” she noted, according to Fortune.
Indeed, the outlet notes that Musk’s passion for projects often results in him setting up temporary accommodations on-site so he can be hands-on.
“When Musk and his brother Kimbal were building their first startup, Zip2, in the ‘90s, they slept in a tiny Palo Alto office for six months while showering at the YMCA, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk,” the outlet noted. “Even as a newfound multi-millionaire, having received $22 million from selling Zip2 to Compaq, Musk slept under his desk most nights as he prepared to launch X.com, the online bank that would later become PayPal, in 1999, according to Isaacson’s biography.”
Even becoming “super wealthy” didn’t make him less prone to couch surfing.
“Even when he rose to the rank of super wealthy, having received another approximately $175 million from eBay’s acquisition of PayPal, he often stayed at colleagues’ homes while traveling in Silicon Valley, including the home of Michael Marks, who briefly served as Tesla CEO in 2007 before the pair clashed and Musk later took over the role,” Fortune explained. “Musk’s habit of finding a resting place close to the action was even more pronounced during the ‘production hell’ era in 2017 and 2018 when Tesla aimed to churn out 5,000 Model 3s per week, nearly double the rate it was producing previously.”
As BizPac Review previously reported, Musk’s mother, Maye, has a similar habit.
“If I have a couch or a mattress on the floor, then I’m good. Sleeping on the floor — there’s a roof over your head. That’s a luxury,” she told the New York Post. The outlet also reported that her nomadic penchant has resulted in her couch surfing until the age of 60, and even sleeping in the garage at her son’s SpaceX facility in Texas.
