Straightforward for him to say. With a web price close to half a trillion {dollars}, Elon Musk might in all probability survive on classic caviar and moon cheese if he needed to. However in response to the Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder, survival within the U.S. does not require way more than a dingy house, a pc, and a few low cost scorching canine.
Earlier than turning into the richest man on the earth, Musk got down to show to himself that even when all his grand ventures crashed and burned, he’d nonetheless be superb. Actually. In a 2015 interview on StarTalk Radio, he instructed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, “In America, it is fairly straightforward to maintain your self alive… So my threshold for present is fairly low.”
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To check that threshold, Musk challenged himself to dwell on simply $1 a day for meals. His grocery listing? Scorching canine, oranges, pasta, inexperienced peppers, and an enormous jar of sauce. “You get actually bored with scorching canine and oranges after some time,” he mentioned, laughing.
For perspective, that $1-a-day funds would break all the way down to 33 cents per meal. In at the moment’s financial system, that will not even purchase a slice of bread in lots of cities. And for the greater than 44 million Individuals combating meals insecurity, Musk’s self-imposed problem reads much less like resilience and extra like a luxurious experiment.
Nonetheless, the purpose wasn’t to romanticize battle—it was a psychological train. “If I can dwell for a greenback a day, then at the very least from a meals price standpoint… effectively, it is fairly straightforward to earn like $30 in a month anyway, so I am going to in all probability be okay,” he reasoned.
Again within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, when Musk first examined his $1-a-day survival problem, grocery costs seemed very totally different. All-beef scorching canine averaged round $2.03 per pound. In the present day, that very same pound of scorching canine runs over $5.20, based mostly on the most up-to-date federal knowledge. That is a 150% bounce, making meat a a lot pricier staple.
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A loaf of white bread price underneath $1 in most shops again then. Now it averages about $1.87—not as dramatic, however nonetheless practically double. Pasta, one in all Musk’s go-to survival meals, has additionally crept up. As soon as 69 to 89 cents per field, it now sells for $1.50 to $2 on common. The numbers present that Musk’s “low threshold for present” weight loss program hasn’t simply aged—it is inflated.
However the frugality did not finish when the cash began rolling in.
In 2022, Musk’s ex-partner Claire Boucher, often known as Grimes, instructed Self-importance Honest in 2022 that his bare-bones life-style continued effectively into his billionaire years. One time, when their mattress had a gap on her aspect, Musk refused to purchase a brand new one—he instructed her to deliver the spare from one other home as an alternative.
Grimes mentioned their shared $40,000 rental had no safety, curious neighbors peeking by the home windows, and so little meals that she as soon as resorted to consuming peanut butter for eight days straight. “Bro doesn’t dwell like a billionaire,” she mentioned. “Bro lives at occasions under the poverty line.”
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And perhaps that is the throughline: for Musk, discomfort was by no means a dealbreaker. He did not want luxurious to perform—only a mission and a flooring to sleep on. “I determine I could possibly be in some dingy house with my pc and be okay and never starve,” he mentioned.
However for tens of millions of Individuals who aren’t CEOs, who do not have levels from Penn or connections in Silicon Valley, the concept that survival is “straightforward” sounds much less motivational and extra disconnected.
Nonetheless, there’s one thing revealing in Musk’s framing. Whether or not it is rockets, EVs, or peanut butter on repeat, he is all the time betting that discomfort is non permanent—and that survival, regardless of how barebones, is simply step one to one thing larger.
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