At Home With Elon Musk: The (Soon-toBe) Bachelor Billionaire

Its Thursday morning in Bel Air, California,

and Elon Musk, his cheeks still wet with aftershave, has retreated to the basement theater of his 20,000-square-foot French Nouveau mansion, which hes converted into a man cave suitable for business or play. The leather couch and coee table inscribed with the periodic table serve as a de facto workstation, a retreat for the e-mails he shoots out past midnight and his research on such things as the Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator, the best heat shield known to man. But rather than trudge to the oce when the rest of the world is awake, the 40year-old billionaire founder of electric carmaker Tesla and SpaceX, the rst private company to put a vehicle into orbit, is teaching me how to play BioShock, an Ayn Randesque rst-person shooter epic. It talks about Hegelian dialectics being the things that determine the course of history, Musk explains, his eyes xed on the screen. Theyre sort of competing philosophies or competing meme sets, and you can look at modern history where its not so much genetics going into battle as a battle of meme structures. Yes, he talks like that. While hes playing video games. The games go on for 90 minutes. While work for both of his companies beckonsTesla was readying the debut of an SUV aimed at ecoconscious soccer moms and plans to launch a new sedan in July; SpaceX, meanwhile, was testing its Dragon spacecraft for a docking with the International Space StationMusk clearly relished the distraction, carving out

still more time for a tour of the house. Situated atop a hidden hill that overlooks the Pacic Ocean, the 1.6-acre grounds boast a tennis court (Musks brother, Kimbal, jokes that their infrequent matches get so competitive that he needs to run away after making a winning shot), an outdoor pool, and a footpath leading to a giant tree upon which Musk, the father of 7-year-old twins and 5year-old triplets, all boys, plans to build a tree fort. The inside is just as grand, with all the expected billionaire trappings, down to the cavernous wine cellar and the master bathroom so big Musk put a treadmill in it. What was missing from all of this, though, was any sign of actual people. The white shelves in a towering library stand embarrassingly bare. (Musk devours books exclusively on his iPhone, most recently The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Walter Isaacsons Steve Jobs.) The pool is covered, the manicured backyard devoid of toys, lawn chairs, or a grill. The boys are at schoolMusk, having been through a much-publicized divorce, shares custody of his sons with his college sweetheart, Justine. His second wife, Talulah Riley, a 26-year-old British actress, is, Im told, back in her home country lming a movie. There is no evidence clothes, shoes, makeupof a female inhabitant. There arent even any personal photographs to speak of, save a 3-foot panoramic shot of Musk and Riley watching an eclipse in front of a private yacht on some remote tropical beach, his arms wrapped around her as they both gaze skyward, laughing. On another wall, a photo of a chair seems to be the placeholder that came with the frame. I ask Musk if he has a dog. Yes, he says, two. But no dish, leashes, or chew toys are in sight.The house, he tells me, is leased. So is the furniture. Although Musk lives here, in

other words, it would be an exaggeration to call this his home. For now, its a way station, the perfect place to play dystopian video games. At 6-foot-1, with broad shoulders and legs that match his rst name (Elon is Hebrew for oak tree, although Musks family comes from Pennsylvania Dutch stock, not Jewish), he lls out the burgundy Tesla Roadster which he chose over his Audi Q7 and Porsche 911for the 20-mile drive to the Hawthornebased headquarters of SpaceX. Pulling onto the 405, he attentively congures the optimum temperature and wind levels for the convertible; programs a mix of Robbie Williams, Adele, and Beethovens Fifth; and drives fast and clinically. Its all done in a manner that reects his public perception as a robotic geniusthe real-life inspiration for the Tony Stark character in Jon Favreaus Iron Man. Much of that reputation is deserved. If I was walking with the three kids and Elon disappeared, he was in a bookstore, recalls his mother, Maye, who, at 63, remains an indemand fashion model. (She recently posed in the bu with a fake baby bump, Demi Moore style, for the cover of New York magazine.)Hed be sitting on the ground in a world of his own. He read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica when he was only 8 or 9 and he remembered it! Growing up in Pretoria, South Africa, Elon alienated schoolmates by correcting their minor factual errors. He thought he was doing them a favor; they thought he was arrogant and responded by bullying him. He can be brutally honest, where youre like, Oh, my God, that stu hurts, his sister, Tosca, says. Hes not trying to be mean or make you feel bad. And he appreciates honesty in return.

By collegeMusk studied physics and business at the University of Pennsylvania, then more physics and science at Stanfordhe had matured physically but retained his blunt intensity, channeling it into his studies to the point where Maye felt the need to check on him to make sure he was at least getting something to eat and wore a fresh pair of socks every day. He has become a better man since college, says his Penn roommate Adeo Ressi, another tech entrepreneur. Now he will make jokes. As he drives to workhis Montblanc aviators, retrieved from the oor of the Lotus-bodied coupe, perched on his nosewe talk about his favorite drives (he favors Highway 1, unsurprisingly), his favorite music (when not rocking to Robbie Williams, hes more a Beatles-andPink Floyd classic-rock man), and his favorite cars (the 1967 Jag E-Type is like a bad girlfriendvery dysfunctional). Do you ever wish you had lived during a dierent time in history? I ask. No, Im glad I live now, he responds, displaying the remnants of his South African lilt. Why? If anyone thinks theyd rather be in a dierent part of history, theyre probably not a very good student of history. Life sucked in the old days. People knew very little, and you were likely to die at a young age of some horrible disease. Youd probably have no teeth by now. It would be particularly awful if you were a woman. Good point. If you go back back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magicbeing able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, ying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle.

These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago, he says. So engineering is, for all intents and purposes, magic, and who wouldnt want to be a magician? Musk has been one of his generations foremost magicians almost since leaving Stanford. In 1995, he cofounded Zip2 Corporation, a software and services provider to the media industry, which he sold to Compaq in 1999 for $307 million in cash. Then, in 1998, he cofounded PayPal, which went public in early 2002; Musk was the largest shareholder of the company until eBay acquired it for $1.5 billion later that year. His fame grew with his successwhen he and Riley married in 2010, Larry Page and Sergey Brin reportedly loaned them the Google jet for their honeymoon; Musk and Riley became frequent guests at Hollywood A-list parties and chic weekend retreats. Over the past decade, he has doubled his magic, at once trying to establish the electric car and private space industries as viable business propositions. Tesla is based in Palo Alto, so Musk commutes between the two companies twice a week via his Dassault Falcon. (Teslas design warehouse is nearby, behind the SpaceX campus.) Investors dont seem to mind the juggling act: Tesla went public with an IPO valued at $226.1 million. In 2011, the company posted total revenues of $204 million. (Losses stood at $254 million, a $100 million improvement over 2010.) Musk owns about 29 percent of Tesla, which has never turned a prot but is valued at well above $3 billion. Privately held SpaceX, founded in 2002 with money from the PayPal sale, has won more than $1 billion in contracts to launch satellites and is scheduled to begin shipping cargo to the International Space Station in April. Musk says he will likely oer it publicly next year. In

the past year, his net worth has surged, jumping from $800 million to $2 billion and earning him a spot on the 2012 Forbes Billionaires list. Thirty minutes into the drive, we arrive at SpaceX, which, if you didnt know better, would seem like a movie set, right down to the life-size statue of Tony Stark in his Iron Man suit and an ice cream stand, where middle-aged engineers line up to pile toppings on their free soft-serve sundaes. The walls here are more impressively adorned than in Musks rental house: He points out a portrait of Wernher von Braun, the ex-Nazi who advocated for NASAs Apollo program, and draws me over to a huge photo of Mars, a place he dreams of colonizing, and navigates me to the Valles Marineris trench. The real show, though, takes place on the manufacturing oor, where the conical Dragon spacecraft awaits its date with the space station. Surrounded by the best toys in the history of the planet, Musk returns to his ocea jumbo corner cube, actually, since SpaceX and Tesla embrace the open-seating philosophy and grabs a sword, its handle swathed in stingray leather, an award for accomplishments in commercial space, and begins whisking it around his shoulders. You could really stab somebody with this thing, he says. Im trying to make it swoosh without killing anyone. I hold up a sheet of paper for target practice, and Musk, true to his promise, avoids killing me, though he fails to slice the paper, instead pushing it out of my hands. He takes revenge on a nearby potted plant, slicing a few leaves o with the precision of a master engineer. As much as Elon Musk is known for rational brilliance, he also carries a playboy reputation nights spent dancing in Afro wigs and leisure suits, closing down Russian clubs in New York, and grokking Burning Man in full.

Young, handsome, self-made, he has all the game he needs at any club, including the one in London where he met Talulah Riley, who was 23 at time, in 2008. So its not too surprising that, at midnight on a Friday in Hollywood, Im still waiting for Musk to text me. The idea is that he will show me, with a group of his friends, his Los Angeleshow the City of Angels plays out when money and access are unlimited. Weve exchanged messages all day about it. But per his latest update, hes eating a quiet dinner at Soho House with his close friend, Iron Man director Jon Favreau. We can meet for a drink at the Beverly Hills Hotel (or somewhere else) afterwards, he texts. By 12:30, though, hes not feeling it: Just left Soho House. Am on way home and pretty tired. Was up early with the kids, so not much sleep. Then another message: The reality is that I very rarely go out to clubs these days. Only did that twice in the past 12 months, because friends dragged me there. Id been waiting with friends a few miles away at the Spare Room. Someone in my group suggests I got hot-chickedcurrent L.A. lingo for being replaced by a better oerbut that doesnt ring true. Later, by chance, I hear from someone who had seen Musk with Favreau at Soho House, as he had said. And over the previous three months, he had faithfully returned every phone call, e-mail, and text I sent. He did go dark on me once. For three weeks, through Christmas and New Years, there had been complete silence, except to cancel a photo shoot. It was as if he had retreated into the rented man cave for extended hibernation. A late-night tweet posted on January 17 explained everything: @rileytalulah It was an amazing four years. I will love you forever. You will make someone very happy one day.

I e-mailed him as soon as I saw the breakup announcementMusk, back from the breach, called me 10 minutes later, at 7 A.M. his time. It just became emotionally dicult, he said quietly. He sounded dierent: sad, yes, but also raw and alive. Essentially, I fell out of love, and its kind of hard to get back. It was a relief to have made the news public, he said, as it had become increasingly evident over the past few months that he and Riley werent going to make it. It turns out that Riley hadnt been with Musk in Los Angeles for months. According to court documents, she was the one who led for divorce. The second split will likely go easier than the rsta public, very acrimonious breakup in 2008 that capped what Musk has called the most dicult year of his life. Justine Musk, who did not respond to interview requests for this story, chronicled their troubles in Marie Claire: The same qualities that helped bring about his extraordinary success dictate that the life you lead with him is his lifeand that there is no middle ground (not least because he has no time to nd it). Elon Musk largely stayed mum. Does he still believe in love? Yeah, absolutely. Although hes not sure at the moment how, or where, to nd it. His wish listseless, hardworking, realisticdoesnt seem to jibe well with his old Hollywood-club ways. And if he cant nd it? That would be sad because then I will not have anyone. Musks two worldsHollywood and Silicon Valleyconverge in February as he hosts the launch party for his new Tesla SUV at the companys Hawthorne design warehouse. Musk has recruited Foster the People as entertainment (three nights later, they would play the Grammys), as nearly 2,000 people, from fashionistas to venture capitalists, Captain America star Chris Evans to California

governor Jerry Brown, wash down lobster with Veuve Clicquot and clamor for a piece of Musk. Taking the stage in a midnight blue velour blazer and dark jeans, Musk actually tells a joke, albeit one about fracking (The world desperately needs sustainable transport. If we dont solve this problem this century, we are fracked!) and stands calmly watching as designers frantically try to open the overstued front trunk of the SUV. (Were maybe a bit stuck on the safety latch there, he says.) He stays late, appears to drink only water, and poses gamely with the many women around him asking for photos without seeming to focus on anyone in particular. Half the time he sits on a couch in a corner surrounded by well-groomed men wearing sports jackets and loafers. The night is crucial for Musk, who has touted the falcon wing SUV as the ideal combination of a minivan (practicality), Audi Q7 (style), and Porsche 911 (performance) and the logical follow-up to his $50,000 Model S electric sedan set to go on sale this summer. He needs a hit: Tesla boasts a $3.6 billion market cap but sold only 2,000 or so of the discontinued Roadsters. Yet he seems as relaxed as Ive seen him. Theres a waiting list for both the SUV and the upcoming sedan, and hes wearing the clarity of his personal life with ease. Two days later, Im back for another morning at his mansion, and this time, the house is jumping. Its Saturday, so the kids are o from school Dad and the boys loudly play a variant of dodgeball they call dogball. (He and his old roommate Ressi have started taking their kids on Daddy camping trips in Yosemite.) Meanwhile, Im with a large photography crew, including three photo assistants, a makeup artist, and a fashion director, plus a blonde Frenchwoman sent to mind the $35,090 Parmigiani wristwatch Musk will

wear for the photos.Musk, unexpectedly, rolls with it. At a previous shoot earlier that week, he had vetoed immediately the tailored oerings from Tom Ford, Giorgio Armani, and Ralph Lauren set out for him. Youll have to nd something else, he had announced to the stylist. I will not look like some preppy boy. Thats not me. He wound up warming to the selections and even bought a few items on the spot. And now hes happily donning what has been requested, whistling Sinatra as he changes. On my way to the airport, I thank him viaemail for his hospitality and for introducing us all to his children. His quick response is typically to the point: Youre welcome. Things are good with business and kids. Just need to gure out the romantic side (or become a monk). In a few hours, hell head to the airport, too, for a quick hop on his Dassault Falcon to a friends birthday party in San Francisco, another day forward in guring out this new life. Click here to watch a conversation with Elon on his way to work.