Grimes told Vanity Fair that dating Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, made her feel “trapped between two worlds.”
John Shearer/Getty Images
Grimes said she wouldn’t be able to afford a house in Austin without Elon Musk’s help.
The singer, who describes herself as a “successful artist,” has two children with Musk.
The average house in Austin costs over $820,000, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Grimes slammed rising housing prices in Austin, Texas in a Twitter thread on Tuesday.
The singer, who’s legal name is Claire Boucher, said she wouldn’t be able to afford a house in the city that could fit her two children without help from their father β Elon Musk.
“Which is INSANE cuz I’m a p[retty] successful artist,” Grimes tweeted.
βππ―π¦πͺπ’π° (@Grimezsz) September 27, 2022
Β
Home prices in Austin have surged since 2020, as remote work options and low taxes spurred new interest in the area. The Austin area, including Travis County, has an average housing price over $820,000 and a median price over $570,000, according to August data from the National Association of Realtors.
Musk β who has moved several of his businesses to Texas β is one of many to transfer company headquarters to the area. Grimes’ concerns over housing prices in Austin echo the Tesla CEO’s. Last year, Musk issued an “urgent” plea for more affordable housing in the area as he looked to fill hundreds of Tesla and SpaceX jobs.
But the billionaire also appears to have contributed to the soaring home prices in Texas. In Brownsville, Texas β the town that neighbors Musk’s SpaceX headquarters β average home prices have climbed as much as 26% in the past two years, per data from Texas A&M University. In May, several local residents told NPR they could no longer afford to live in the area as demand from SpaceX workers sent housing costs higher.
Grimes faced backlash on Twitter after calling out rising home prices.Β
“Grimes you are set, your opinion on ‘the housing market’ is invalid,” one user tweeted.
“I’m not worried about me, I’m worried about the citizens of Austin,” Grimes tweeted in response to the critic. “I’m using myself as an example of the extreme wealth needed to live comfortably here which wasn’t the case in the near past.”
In the Twitter thread, the singer said she was tweeting about the issue to “help out some actual experts/policy makers.”
By all accounts, Grimes appears to have a stable music career. To date, she has released five studio albums and has gone on tour with several top artists, including Lana Del Rey, Diplo, and Swedish House Mafia. Last year, she signed with Columbia Records, her first major label. She also made headlines when she sold a series of NFTs for nearly $6 million.
She also has two children with the richest man in the world.Β In March, Grimes revealed she had secretly had a second baby with Musk via a surrogate β one of Musk’s 10 known children.
In the past, Grimes has criticized the Tesla CEO’s lifestyle. In March, she told Vanity Fair that he sometimes lives “below the poverty line.” Musk has a net worth of about $250 billion per Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index. The billionaire has said he currently lives in a $45,000 3-bedroom house near SpaceX’s headquarters after he began off-loading a multi-million dollar property portfolio in 2020.