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Elon Musk is foreclosing on the Bel Air home once owned by actor Gene Wilder after selling it to the actor’s nephew at a discount and loaning him money to make the purchase.
Musk owned the home but sold it in 2020 to Jordan Walker-Pearlman, Wilder’s nephew, and his wife Elizabeth Hunter, the Wall Street Journal reported.
He originally asked for $9.5 million, but when the couple said he couldn’t afford it, he reduced the price to $7 million. Musk also offered them a $6.7 million loan.
But Walker-Pearlman and Hunter fell behind on their payments and could no longer afford the home, according to the Journal. Musk issued the notice of default in July.
The couple has since listed the house for $12.95 million.
Walker-Pearlman, who lived in the house as a child, told the Journal that Musk’s decision to foreclose is not “adversarial or mean.”
He said the actors’ and writers’ strikes last year made it difficult for him and his wife, a screenwriter, to make payments.
“There’s no tragedy here,” he said. “Elon gave us a magical opportunity. I have no complaints.”
“She did not want to continue morally owing Elon anymore,” he said of his wife, adding that the property was under her name. “We already owe him such a spiritual debt.”
The 2,800-square-foot house is located above the Bel-Air Country Club. Wilder sold it for $2.725 million in 2007. He died in 2016.
In 2020, when Musk announced he was “selling almost all physical possessions” and “will own no house,” he made an exception for the home, saying it needed to be preserved.
Walker-Pearlman insisted he understands why the billionaire has moved forward with the foreclosure. “This is likely the closing of a very unicorn and beautiful chapter of our lives,” he said of spending time living in the house. “I’m not disgruntled at all.”
Musk has not commented publicly on the matter.