Kanye West and Elon Musk both took to Twitter to express their real estate ambitions over the past few days.
On Sunday, Kanye West tweeted that he wanted to an architecture arm to his company Yeezy, which currently sells West’s signature clothes and signature shoes.
“We’re looking for architects and industrial designers who want to make the world better,” West tweeted. His comment drew widespread online speculation on just what such an architecture arm would do.
West has stepped up his talk about moving into the real estate realm this month; last week, he showed prominent radio and television host Lenard McKelvey (also known as Charlamagne that God) 300 acres of property that he wanted to transform into a housing community.
“If anyone has ever been to any of my cribs, they know I’m super into developing homes,” West said in the video interview. “It’s just the next frontier to me: to develop.”
Along with West, tech business magnate Elon Musk also tweeted about plans to expand into the housing market, saying his startup the Boring Company will use leftover dirt from the tunnels it’s digging under L.A. for a transit network and use it to make low-cost housing.
“The Boring Company will be using dirt from tunnel digging to create bricks for low cost housing,” Musk, who is known for his innovative aerospace and transportation initiatives including SpaceX and Tesla, wrote on Twitter.
As of press time, Musk did not elaborate further on how this plan would work in practice — such as where the housing would be built, how much of it, who would qualify and other details. But that is characteristic of his announcement style
Unlike with West, Musk’s foray into real estate comes as less of a surprise. In 2016, Musk announced the Tesla Solar Roof, shingles that generate energy from the sun but look similar to and provide similar weatherproofing as traditional roofing materials. Tesla has already begun shipping and installing the Solar Roofs to customers as of April 2018. No word yet on whether Musk’s new affordable housing will ship with these roofing tiles, or if he and West will be collaborating on real estate plans.
Kanye stopped by the SpaceX rocket factory today. pic.twitter.com/6z7gHBn6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 24, 2011
