Kimbal Musk

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Kimbal Musk sits on the boards of Tesla and SpaceX, yet the work he promotes most loudly happens in schoolyards. He was born on the 20th of September 1972. He is a businessman and restaurateur whose career runs from software to soil. His older brother Elon is the chief executive of the two companies where Kimbal holds board seats. Kimbal's own ventures grow food in shipping containers, teach children in outdoor classrooms, and even choreograph drones in the sky. This documentary follows his path from South Africa to Colorado. It asks how a software founder turned into a restaurant owner and a builder of school gardens. It asks what a famous surname gives a person, and what it costs. And it looks at the controversies that have followed him.

  952265

• 2. Pretoria To Kingston

  ›

  In Pretoria, South Africa, Kimbal finished high school before heading across the Atlantic. He grew up alongside his older brother Elon, his younger sister Tosca, and a crowd of cousins. His mother, Maye Musk, is a model and dietitian. She was born in Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised in South Africa. His father, Errol Musk, held many jobs. Errol is an electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, emerald dealer, and property developer. He also partly owned a rental lodge at the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve. Kimbal left Pretoria to meet his brother in Kingston, Ontario. There he enrolled at Queen's University to study business. During his studies he took a job at Scotiabank. He graduated from Queen's in 1995. By the time he held that degree, he was already an entrepreneur twice over.

  14152013

• 3. Software Years

  ›

  In 1994, a student named Kimbal Musk ran a residential painting business through College Pro Painters. It was his first venture. The same year, he and Elon started a second company, Zip2. Zip2 was an online city guide. It supplied material to the new online editions of The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. Compaq bought the company in 1999 for $307 million. With that payout, Kimbal began investing in young software and technology firms. One of them was X.com, his brother's online financial services and email payments company. X.com merged with a rival, Confinity, and the combined company became PayPal. In October 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in stock. From 2006 to 2011, Kimbal served as chief executive of OneRiot, an advertising network. In September 2011, Walmart-Labs bought OneRiot. The price was never disclosed, and by then his attention had long since turned toward food.

  2021221618

• 4. Restaurant Years

  ›

  While Elon stayed in California, Kimbal moved to New York City and enrolled at the French Culinary Institute. In April 2004, he opened The Kitchen in Boulder, Colorado. It was a community bistro, started with two partners, Jen Lewin and Hugo Matheson. The flagship in Boulder was followed by locations in downtown Denver and in Chicago. Today he co-owns The Kitchen Restaurant Group, which also has a restaurant in Austin. A second concept arrived in 2011. Next Door American Eatery opened in downtown Boulder as a fast casual American restaurant. By 2019 it had grown to ten locations. Hugo Matheson would soon become Kimbal's partner in a very different project, one aimed at children rather than diners.

  2729313452

• 5. Learning Gardens

  ›

  For seven years, Kimbal backed the Growe Foundation, which planted school gardens in the Boulder community. In 2011, he and Hugo Matheson built on that work and established Big Green. The nonprofit was originally named The Kitchen Community. Its goal was to connect kids to real food through outdoor classrooms called Learning Gardens. The lesson plans link to existing school curriculum, including math, science, and literacy. Children learn about food, healthy eating, lifestyle choices, and the environment. Each Kitchen restaurant donates a percentage of its sales to plant gardens in its own community. In 2012, the group built 26 gardens in Colorado, 16 in Chicago, and 12 more around the country. That December, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel handed the nonprofit $1 million to install 80 gardens in the city's schools. On the 2nd of February 2015, it celebrated its 200th garden at Camino Nuevo Charter Academy. This high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District also marked the district's first SEEDS Project. By the end of 2015, the group had built 260 gardens across Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and Memphis. In January 2018 it became a national nonprofit named Big Green and announced Detroit as its seventh city, with a plan for 100 schools. As of 2019, nearly 600 schools were in the network, reaching over 300,000 students every day. Big Green and Kimbal also established Plant a Seed Day, an international holiday.

  3536374041

• 6. Containers And Drones

  ›

  In 2016, Kimbal co-founded Square Roots, an urban farming company with a shipping container at the center of its method. Food grows organically inside indoor, climate controlled containers, using hydroponics. The company formed a partnership with Gordon Food Services to expand beyond New York City. In 2018, the World Economic Forum named Kimbal a Global Social Entrepreneur of the Year. Four years later he turned to a very different field. In 2022, he became an entrepreneur in multi-drone coordinated aerial displays. Through a holding company called Nova Displays, he bought Intel's drone display subsidiary, along with nine thousand drones.

  6785326

• 7. Life Beyond Business

  ›

  In February 2010, Kimbal broke his neck while inner tubing. The injury caused temporary paralysis, which lasted three days until surgery resolved it. His first marriage was to Jen Lewin, and the couple had two children. They later divorced. He lives in Boulder, Colorado. He also has a daughter from another relationship. In April 2018, he married Christiana Wyly, an environmental activist. Her father is Sam Wyly, a former billionaire.

  14849

• 8. Boards And Scrutiny

  ›

  From 2013 to 2019, Kimbal served on the board of Chipotle Mexican Grill. His Tesla holdings brought different attention. On the 9th of February 2021, he sold 30,000 Tesla shares worth $25.6 million. On the 24th of February 2022, it was reported that the SEC was investigating him for possible insider trading. The question centered on a sale of 88,500 shares, valued at $108 million. He made that sale one day before Elon posted a Twitter poll asking whether to sell 10% of his own Tesla stake. After the poll, Elon sold billions of dollars of shares, and the stock price sank.

  A second dispute began in 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. The Kitchen Restaurant Group had collected money from employees into a Family Fund, meant to cover hardships and personal emergencies. When the restaurants closed "permanently," employees were locked out of the money they had contributed. The restaurants later reopened, but reports said the fund was not restored to those who paid in. Kimbal disputed the reports, citing a lack of facts from journalists. The group says the fund now receives contributions from owners and customers. Tips on take-out orders are rerouted into it, and the owners match them. It also says grants have been awarded and that furloughed and laid-off workers will be considered in future.

  A third controversy concerns Jeffrey Epstein. Kimbal was reported to have dated a woman in Epstein's inner circle, who was Epstein's ex-girlfriend. He was allegedly set up with her by Epstein, in an attempt to build a connection with the Musk family. Kimbal began socializing with Epstein in 2012, years after Epstein's conviction in 2008. He was invited to Epstein's private island in 2013, though no records show that he visited. Documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of the Epstein files investigation reference him more than 140 times in emails. The emails were exchanged between Epstein, his associates, and Kimbal himself. Artists and attendees of Burning Man criticized these ties. Kimbal then resigned from the board of the Burning Man Project, a position he had held since 2021.

  1011254456