Musk Sells Bel-Air Home To Chinese Billionaire For $12 Million More Than He Paid For It In 2012

It was just a little more than a month ago that we wrote that Elon Musk claimed he would be selling “almost all” of his physical possessions and had put his houses on the market. 

Now, he’s found a buyer for his Bel-Air mansion: a Chinese billionaire who seems to be happy forking over $29 million to Musk for the home. The buyer is tied to billionaire William Ding, according to Business Insider, who is the founder and CEO of NetEase.

Ignoring the fact that it’s odd for Musk to be offloading his assets at the same time Tesla’s valuation is at, or near, all time highs of ~$185 billion, Musk was able to cash out with a $12 million profit on this home (which he bought for $17 million 2012) in the midst of a real estate market that is enduring chaos from both the supply and the demand side as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Even stranger was that we took the time to note in our early May writeup that according to Bloomberg: “Fewer buyers were coming from China, Russia and the Middle East amid international tensions, and limits on state and local tax deductions dampened the appeal of owning California homes for wealthy U.S. buyers.” 

So not only did Musk find himself a buyer from China, he found one that was willing to pay him a $12 million premium on his house to what it cost in 2012.

Recall, we also noted in 2019 that Musk took out $61 million in mortgages on five of his properties in California. Four of these properties were in the Bel Air neighborhood.

The loans were signed off on by Morgan Stanley and represented $50 million in new borrowing for Musk at the time. One loan was a refinancing on a 20,200 plus sq. foot property that Musk purchased in 2012 for $17 million. The initial $10 million loan he took on the property had turned into a $19.5 million debt, with a monthly payment of about $180,000.