Elon Musk’s ‘Extreme Poverty’ Past: Surviving on $1 a Day with Noodles, Green Peppers, and Sausages!

“My living needs were pretty low. I thought I could live in a shitty apartment with just a computer and not starve to death,” Musk confided.

In a 2015 interview on the Startalk podcast, Elon Musk made statements that surprised the public and the media, saying that during his time studying at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, the richest billionaire on the planet spent just $1 a day.

“My living needs were pretty low. I thought I could live in a shitty apartment with just a computer and not starve to death.”

Musk said that when he was young, he was only interested in things that were considered the future of humanity, such as electric cars, solar energy and sustainable consumption. So, right after moving to Canada, Musk tried to spend as little as possible.

“You should buy food in bulk at the supermarket, because it’s cheaper, although after a while, you might get tired of sausages and oranges. Noodles and green peppers are also things that I buy regularly.”

So, Musk decided to spend a maximum of $30 a month on food. “I just live like that. It’s pretty good,” Musk confided.

However, Musk also shared with Business Insider that he does not encourage anyone to apply this way of spending too scrimply because it seemed to be suitable only many years ago.

“I don’t recommend anyone to live on only $1 a day. That’s not very fun. Besides, I’ve been doing this since the 1990s. $1 was worth more then than it is now. Now if you do what I did, it will be quite difficult.”

When asked about the biggest motivation for his decision to spend sparingly, Musk said that this was not necessarily poverty living on charity or charity. It was simply the way he experienced a frugal life on the way to becoming a great businessman.

In 2022, in an interview with Vanity Fair, singer Grimes, Elon Musk’s ex-girlfriend, also revealed that Musk used to live extremely “poor”, even “below the poverty line”.

Specifically, when the two were still living together, Grimes accidentally discovered a hole in the mattress in the bedroom. However, instead of buying a new one, Musk suggested taking the old mattress from Grimes’ house to replace it as a savings.

“He didn’t even buy himself a new mattress,” Grimes said. “Musk didn’t live like a billionaire, sometimes below the poverty line. Sometimes I wonder if it’s okay to live in a $40,000 rental house with no security. The neighbors are free to film us. I also had to eat peanut butter for 8 days straight.”

Not stopping there, Musk also decided to sell all of his real estate and live in a small prefabricated house of only about 30 square meters, rented by SpaceX.

“The house in Boca Chica/Starbase that I live in is worth about $50,000. I rent it from SpaceX,” Elon Musk shared on Twitter, saying that the house is located in a town in Texas, near the Mexican border and SpaceX’s rocket launch area.

Not caring much about money and material things has probably helped Musk be free to pursue big goals and dreams. He is currently worth $346 billion, according to Forbes magazine, and has become the focus of the media after the victory of President-elect Donald Trump.

Thus, this year alone, the Tesla CEO’s assets increased by an unprecedented $117.8 billion, putting him more than $128 billion ahead of the second-placed person, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Elon Musk’s personal assets of $346 billion are even larger than the $327 billion market capitalization of software company Salesforce.