Scary reason for Musk’s property blitz ​

Billionaire and new dad Elon Musk has opened up about the alarming “privacy issues” that sparked his property-buying bonanza.

The Tesla and SpaceX founder, who has just welcomed his sixth child, was interviewed by comedian Joe Rogan for an episode of his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience recently.

During the discussion, he revealed he began buying a number of properties surrounding his main home in Bel Air in Los Angeles after experiencing frightening security breaches.

“I started having some privacy issues where people would just come to my house and you know, start climbing over the walls and stuff,” Musk said.

“I sort of like bought a house and some of the houses around my house.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, Musk spent around $US100 million ($A153.8 million) on his property portfolio, which includes “a cluster of six in a leafy Los Angeles neighbourhood” as well as an estate near Tesla’s headquarters.

However, Musk is now starting to offload his properties after taking to Twitter last Saturday to declare: “I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house.”

He followed it up with one “stipulation” regarding one of his properties, which formerly belonged to Charlie And The Chocolate Factory star Gene Wilder.

“Just one stipulation on sale: I own Gene Wilder’s old house. It cannot be torn down or lose any (of) its soul,” Musk tweeted.

When asked why he was taking such a drastic step, Musk issued a one-word reply: “Freedom.”

So far, two of his homes have been added to real estate listing site Zillow, including a five-bedroom ranch-style home with an asking price of $US9.5 million ($A14.7 million) and a six-bedroom mansion worth $US30 million ($A46.5 million).

He also gave more details about his decision to sell up during the podcast, explaining he wanted to free up cash to pursue his dream of sending humans to Mars.
 

“Does it really make sense for me to spend time designing and building a house? Or should I be allocating that time to getting us to Mars? I should probably do the latter,” he said.

The 48-year-old, who Forbes estimates has a net worth of $US38.7 billion ($A60 billion), has this week celebrated the birth of a baby boy with partner, Canadian musician Grimes.

Musk has five sons with his first wife. He also had a son, Nevada, who died of SIDS in infancy.

Musk and Grimes took to Twitter this week to claim their son would be given the moniker “X Æ A-12”, although it appears that won’t be possible as California law bans symbols in names.