Tesla board members are investigating whether CEO Elon Musk misused company resources on a project to build a glass-walled mansion near the company’s Texas headquarters, according to a new report.
Dubbed ‘Project 42’ and described as a mansion for Musk inside the company, the plans involve a dramatic glass-walled building near Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
After ordering millions of dollars worth of special glass, Tesla board members investigated whether company resources were misused and whether Musk himself had a role, people familiar with the matter told the Journal.
The building’s plans have evolved over time, but at least some renderings appear to show a living area with bedrooms, bathrooms and a kitchen, the people said.
One rendering depicts the building as a glass cube similar to the Apple Store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, while another shows it as a ‘twisted hexagon’ next to a body of water with the Tesla factory in the background, the report said.
Tesla board members are investigating whether CEO Elon Musk misused company resources on a project to build a glass wall, according to a new report.
Dubbed ‘Project 42’ and described as a palace for Musk inside the company, the plans involve a dramatic glass-walled building near Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin, seen above.
Other renderings depicted a waterfall as part of the landscaping, and some Tesla employees speculated that the project might include some sort of museum.
The building in question has not been built, and Telsa insiders said they were unsure of the project’s status or the outcome of the board’s investigation.
Musk and Tesla’s board did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment and could not be immediately reached by dailymail.com. Tesla has no media relations department and does not respond to press inquiries.
The mystery project appears to date back at least a year, when Bloomberg reported that Tesla’s board was investigating a major purchase of expensive, specialized glass.
According to Bloomberg, the internal investigation began after the Glass purchase order was flagged to Tesla’s finance and internal audit groups.
A global supply chain crisis made the glass difficult to obtain, but the company’s status as a ‘global manufacturing powerhouse’ made it easy to obtain the building material in high demand.
The board is investigating whether Tesla executives in Musk’s inner circle used company influence to obtain the glass for a project that was ultimately intended for his personal use.
One rendering depicts the building as a glass cube similar to the Apple Store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue (seen above), while another shows it as a ‘twisted hexagon’.
Kasturi’s living situation has been the subject of speculation since tweeting ‘I won’t own a house’ in May 2020 and subsequently selling all of his California mansions for over $100 million.
Musk reportedly owns a mansion in Boca Chica, Texas, near the SpaceX launch site, which he founded and controls.
The Tesla CEO has recently spent most of his time at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters after buying the company last year for $44 billion.
Musk has faced his latest challenge as owner of Twitter in recent days, after launching the Facebook-owned Meta rival service Threads.
Threads surpassed 100 million sign-ups in five days, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday, displacing ChatGP as the fastest online platform to hit the milestone.
The app has been setting new records for user additions since its launch on Wednesday, with celebrities from Jennifer Lopez to Kim Kardashian joining the platform in what was seen as the first serious threat to Twitter.
Twitter responded by threatening to sue Meta over the app, alleging that the social media behemoth used its trade secrets and other confidential information.
This claim can be difficult to prove, legal experts say.
Musk, 52, has been sparring with Zuckerberg since they appeared to have agreed to take each other on in a cage fight.
In what went viral, Musk tweeted on June 20 boasting that he was ‘up for a cage match if it was him’, to which the meta boss responded on Instagram with ‘send me the position’.