Elon Musk is now claiming he's homeless.
In a recent TED interview obtained by TMZ, one of the richest men on Earth can be seen trying to jump through some serious mental hoops to defend his billions.
In what appears to be an attempt at making him look less evil, Musk said that having a ridiculously large fortune all that isn't that bad, particularly when you don't actually use the money on yourself.
Yeah, you read that right. According to him, people have it all wrong, because he doesn't live like a regular billionaire and spend his fortune on stuff like luxury items and lavish getaways.
“I don't have yacht, I don’t take vacations, so it's not that my personal consumption is high," Musk insisted. "One exception is a plane but if I don't use the plane I have less hours to work.”
Not only that, but Musk went on to tell the interviewer that he doesn't own a house, even near Tesla HQ in San Francisco or the SpaceX site in Texas, where he did previously live in a 375 square foot spot. So then where does he sleep if he's ostensibly ditched his apartment? Well, just like a touring indie band, it turns out he relies on his friends.
That's right, the guy who is now the majority owner of Twitter is a couch surfer with a penchant for staying in other peoples' guest rooms. And he apparently thinks that's what makes him an unproblematic rich person, especially since he believes his money is mostly going towards his companies and projects that, ultimately, benefit mankind.
“I think there’s some axiomatic flaws that are leading to that conclusion," Musk said of the assumption that all billionaires are bad. "If, for sure it would be problematic if I was consuming billions of dollars of year in personal consumption but that is not the case."
Watch Musk try and look humble here.
Photo via Getty / Hannibal Hanschke / POOL / AFP