Let’s chew on this irony: Elon Musk, who tosses satellites into space, births electric revolutions, and sits comfortably atop the billionaire throne, lives in a house that costs less than one of his own electric trucks. Now that’s something many of us didn’t see coming. At around $50,000, Musk’s primary Texas home is humbler than a Tesla Cybertruck.
The 375-square-foot home is “awesome”, quaint, compact, and shockingly… livable. Meanwhile, the affordable Cybertruck has underwhelmed fans, shedding features like snake skin. We’ve got thoughts. Let’s unpack this contradiction.
Elon Musk’s Texas house: Modesty or marketing genius?
Elon Musk’s living arrangement is so unexpected that it borders on surreal. His home in Boca Chica (walking distance from SpaceX’s Starbase) is a Boxabl Casita, a compact, foldable dwelling with the footprint of a generous garden shed (per Hello!). It’s part humble, part strategic, and part bizarre. But it’s his truth. Musk, who currently has a net worth of $393.8 billion, once posted:
My primary home is literally a ~$50k house in Boca Chica / Starbase that I rent from SpaceX. It’s kinda awesome though.
And honestly, we weirdly admire it!
The 375-square-foot house is white, single-storied, and suspiciously normal. It has a small driveway, a green lawn, and a backyard where he’s planted trees and added a patio. The boxabl out back, the pricier unit, serves as a guesthouse for visiting friends. He shared:
I use the boxabl as my guesthouse, so if a friend comes and stays then they can stay in the boxabl if they want.
It’s a tiny space that’s big on features: tall ceilings, fire and bug resistance, a full kitchen, and more charm than most penthouses. Musk also mentioned:
It’s technically a three-bedroom, it used to be a two-bedroom, but I converted the garage into a third bedroom.
You’d expect chandeliers and infinity pools, but what you get instead is plywood pride and minimalist flair. Guests expecting the Musk manse are often blindsided. “But I’ve done a lot with the place,” he confessed. You almost want to pat him on the back and say, “You tried!”
Meanwhile, that ‘affordable’ Cybertruck is anything but
Now, let’s talk about the so-called ‘low-cost’ Cybertruck. Because nothing says ‘budget’ like $69,990 for a base model that was originally pitched to start at $39,990 in 2019 (see Fortune).
Priced at $69,990, the single-motor version barely undercuts its beefier siblings and loses a heap of essential features in the process. It doesn’t have the dual motors, the air suspension, the motorized bed cover, or even decent seats. Vegan leather? Gone. Rear display screen? Nope. Want to plug in your tools? Forget the 240V outlet.
What’s left is a cloth-seated, soft-covered, manually downgraded truck that somehow costs the price of a luxury sedan. Sawyer Merritt, a respected Tesla community figure, didn’t mince his verdict:
The AWD trim for $10k more is absolutely worth the extra cost compared to the new Cybertruck LR RWD. https://t.co/4LtlvPSrvk
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) April 11, 2025
Translation: you’re getting nickel-and-dimed on a truck that feels like a bait-and-switch.
Sure, you get a longer 350-mile range, but only if you stick with the dinky 18-inch rims. The minute you upgrade to the 20-inch wheels? Boom…down to 331 miles. The same old story: you pay more to get… less? As investor Gary Black put it:
We estimate $TSLA will deliver just 20,000 Cybertrucks total in FY’25 vs 37,000 CTs delivered in FY’24. Given just a $10K price discount vs the CT AWD version and the removal of many CT AWD features, we expect little if any incremental volume will be added to WS Tesla delivery… https://t.co/sbzIE0AojM
— Gary Black (@garyblack00) April 11, 2025
Elon Musk may have banked on high-volume Cybertruck sales, even preparing to scale production from 125,000 to 250,000 units annually. But reality has been less enthusiastic. Since the launch in late 2023, only around 46,000 have been sold. Black wrote, “We expect little if any incremental volume will be added to Tesla delivery estimates as a result of the CT RWD addition.”
The so-called affordable trim hasn’t sparked the interest many hoped for.
There’s a strange integrity in Musk’s Texas house. It’s unorthodox, maybe even performative, but it’s his. It reflects some odd combination of utilitarianism, eccentricity, and maybe even a bit of genius. But the Cybertruck? That feels like a riddle wrapped in a disappointment.
Tesla fans were expecting accessibility and innovation. What they got instead was a gut renovation: stripped features, bloated pricing, and a truck that feels more like an unfinished draft than a flagship release. A house that costs less than the truck? That’s irony. A truck that delivers less for more? That’s probably just a bad value.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
