Kimbal James Musk (born 20 September 1972) is a businessman and
restaurateur
A restaurateur is a person who opens and runs restaurants professionally. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who owns a restaurant, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspe ...
. He co-owns The Kitchen Restaurant Group, with restaurants in
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
,
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
, and
Austin
Austin refers to:
Common meanings
* Austin, Texas, United States, a city
* Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters
* Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters
* Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...
. He is the co-founder and chairman of
Big Green, a
501(c)(3) nonprofit
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 5 ...
that has built hundreds of outdoor classrooms called ''Learning Gardens'' in schoolyards across the United States.
Musk is also the co-founder and chairman of Square Roots, an urban farming company growing food in hydroponic, indoor, climate controlled shipping containers. Musk sits on the boards of
Tesla Inc.,
SpaceX
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...
, and the
Burning Man Project
The Burning Man Project is an American organization that annually plans, manages, and builds Burning Man on the dry lake of the Black Rock Desert in northwestern Nevada. The company coordinates the year-round, behind-the-scenes work needed to bui ...
; his older brother
Elon is the CEO of the former two companies. He was on the board of
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. ( ), often known simply as Chipotle, is an American multinational chain of fast casual restaurants specializing in bowls, tacos, and Mission burritos made to order in front of the customer. As of March 31, 2025, C ...
from 2013 to 2019. He is the brother of Elon Musk,
Tosca Musk, son of
Errol and
Maye Musk, and a major shareholder in Tesla.
In 1995 he co-founded, with Elon, the software company
Zip2, which was acquired by
Compaq
Compaq Computer Corporation was an American information technology, information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compati ...
for $307 million in 1999.
Early life
Musk grew up with his brother
Elon (older), sister
Tosca
''Tosca'' is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1 ...
(younger), and many cousins. His mother,
Maye Musk (), is a model and dietitian born in
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...
, Canada, and raised in South Africa.
[He was once an illegal immigrant in the US and admitted it in a 2013 video interview. ; discussion of his family starts around the 15th minute.] His father,
Errol Musk
Errol Graham Musk (born 25 May 1946) is a South African businessman, politician, and the patriarch of the Musk family. He was a member of Pretoria City Council from 1972 to 1983, and was a member of the Progressive Federal Party from 1980 to 1983 ...
, is a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, emerald dealer, and property developer, who partly owned a rental lodge at the
Timbavati Private Nature Reserve
Timbavati Private Nature Reserve is a nature reserve on the western edge of Kruger National Park in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. It was established in 1956 by like-minded game farmers with the creation of the ''Timbavati Association''. Th ...
.
After finishing
high school in
Pretoria
Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country.
Pretoria strad ...
, South Africa, Musk left to meet his brother in
Kingston, Ontario
Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the northeastern end of Lake Ontario. It is at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River, the south end of the Rideau Canal. Kingston is near the Thousand Islands, ...
, Canada, and enrolled at
Queen's University to pursue a degree in business. While in school, Musk first worked at
Scotiabank
The Bank of Nova Scotia (), operating as Scotiabank (), is a Canadian multinational corporation, multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. One of Canada's Big Five (banks), Big Five banks, it is the ...
. He graduated with his degree from Queen's University in 1995.
Business career
Musk's first venture was a residential painting business with College Pro Painters in 1994, the same year he and his elder brother, Elon, started their second company,
Zip2. Zip2 was an online city guide that provided content for the new online versions of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' and the ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...
'' newspapers. The company was sold in 1999 to
Compaq
Compaq Computer Corporation was an American information technology, information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compati ...
for $307 million.
After selling Zip2, Musk invested in several young software and technology companies. Musk was an early investor in his brother's venture
X.com, an online financial services and email payments company. X.com merged with competitor
Confinity
Confinity Inc. was an American software company based in Silicon Valley, best known as the creator of PayPal. It was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek, initially as a PalmPilot payments and cryptography compan ...
to form
PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support E-commerce payment system, online money transfers; it serves as an electronic alter ...
, which in October 2002 was acquired by
eBay
eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...
for $1.5 billion in stock.
While Elon stayed in California, Kimbal moved to New York
and enrolled into the
French Culinary Institute in New York City. In April 2004, Musk opened The Kitchen, a community bistro in
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule city in Boulder County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the most ...
with
Jen Lewin and Hugo Matheson. In addition to its flagship restaurant in Boulder, The Kitchen has locations in
downtown Denver
Downtown Denver is the main financial, commercial, business, and entertainment district in Denver, Colorado, United States. There is over of office space in downtown Denver, with 132,000 workers.
The downtown area consists mostly of the neigh ...
and Chicago.
From 2006 to 2011, Musk served as the CEO of OneRiot, an advertising network. In September 2011,
Walmart-Labs acquired OneRiot for an undisclosed purchase price.
In 2011, Next Door American Eatery opened in downtown Boulder as a fast casual American eatery. Next Door American Eatery is a growing restaurant concept with ten locations as of 2019.
After seven years of supporting the
Growe Foundation to plant school gardens in the Boulder community, in 2011 Musk and Matheson established Big Green (originally named The Kitchen Community), a
501c3
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 5 ...
nonprofit to help connect kids to real food by creating dynamic Learning Garden classrooms in schools across America. Learning Gardens teach children an understanding of food, healthy eating, lifestyle choices and environment through lesson plans and activities that tie into existing school curriculum, such as math, science, and literacy.
Each of The Kitchen restaurants donates a percentage of sales to help plant Learning Gardens in its local community. In 2012, Big Green built 26 gardens in Colorado, 16 in Chicago, and 12 more around the United States.
In December 2012, Chicago Mayor
Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician, advisor, diplomat, and former investment banker who most recently served as List of ambassadors of the United States to Japan, United States ambassador to Japan from 2022 ...
handed Musk's nonprofit $1 million to install 80 Learning Gardens in Chicago city schools.
[ On 2 February 2015, The Kitchen Community celebrated its 200th Learning Garden build at Camino Nuevo Charter Academy, a high school in ]Los Angeles Unified School District
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is a State school, public school district in Los Angeles County, California, United States of America. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the List ...
which also marked the District's first SEEDS Project.
By the end of 2015, four years after its founding, The Kitchen Community had built 260 Learning Gardens across Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Memphis. In 2016, Musk co-founded Square Roots, an urban farming company that grows organic food in shipping containers. The company formed a partnership with Gordon Food Services (GFS) to expand outside of NYC. In January 2018, The Kitchen Community (TKC), expanded into a national nonprofit called Big Green and announced its seventh city, Detroit, to build outdoor Learning Garden classrooms in 100 schools across the Motor City. As of 2019, Big Green is in seven American cities with nearly 600 schools across its network impacting over 300,000 students every day. Musk and Big Green have established Plant a Seed Day, an international holiday.
Musk has been profiled in major publications such as ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', CNN
Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
, ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'', ''Fast Company
''Fast Company'' is an American business magazine published monthly in print and online, focusing on technology, business, and design. It releases six print issues annually.
History
''Fast Company'' was founded in November 1995 by Alan Webb ...
'', ''WIRED
Wired may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976
* ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993
* ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017
* "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street''
* "Wired ...
'', ''Chicago Sun Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...
'', ''CBS News
CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. It is headquartered in New York City. CBS News television programs include ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs ''CBS News Sunday Morn ...
'', ''Business Insider
''Business Insider'' (stylized in all caps: BUSINESS INSIDER; known from 2021 to 2023 as INSIDER) is a New York City–based multinational financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Inside ...
'', ''Entrepreneur Magazine
''Entrepreneur'' is an American magazine and website that carries news stories about entrepreneurship, small business management, and business. First published in 1977. it is published by ''Entrepreneur Media Inc''., headquartered in Irvine, Cal ...
'', Musk was named a Global Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2018 by the World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...
.
Musk faced scrutiny in 2020 after changing his Next Door's Family Fund program in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
. The fund was originally set up to help employees during an emergency situation. Contributions came from employees of Next Door.
On 9 February 2021, Musk sold 30,000 shares of Tesla, Inc.
Tesla, Inc. ( or ) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from h ...
worth $25.6 million. On 24 February 2022, it was reported that the SEC was investigating Musk for possible insider trading violations after he sold 88,500 shares of Tesla, valued at $108 million, one day before his brother put out a poll on Twitter asking if he should sell 10% of his Tesla shares. As a result of that poll, Elon Musk sold billions of dollars of Tesla shares and the stock price sank.
Personal life
Musk married Jen Lewin, with whom he established The Kitchen. The couple had two children together. They later divorced. He lives in Boulder, Colorado. In April 2018, he married Christiana Wyly, an environmental activist and the daughter of ex-billionaire Sam Wyly. Musk also has a daughter from another relationship.
In February 2010 Musk broke his neck while inner tubing, resulting in temporary paralysis that lasted for three days until it was resolved with surgery.
Controversy
Kimbal Musk's restaurant group collected funds (called the Family Fund) from employees to cover hardships and personal emergencies, but during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, the restaurants closed "permanently" and the employees were locked out of the funds they had contributed to. Later, the restaurants reopened but reportedly did not restore the fund to those who contributed. Musk later disputed reports of the controversy, citing lack of facts by journalists. The Kitchen Restaurant Group reports the fund now receives contributions from owners and customers; as tips for take-out orders are rerouted to the fund and then matched by the owners. The group also reports that grants have been awarded and both furloughed and laid-off workers will be considered in future.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Musk, Kimbal
1972 births
Living people
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century Canadian businesspeople
21st-century South African businesspeople
American arts and crafts industry businesspeople
American environmentalists
American male chefs
American people of British descent
American people of Canadian descent
American people of Pennsylvania Dutch descent
American philanthropists
American restaurateurs
American venture capitalists
Businesspeople from New York City
Businesspeople in information technology
Canadian environmentalists
Canadian male chefs
Canadian people of British descent
Canadian people of South African descent
Canadian philanthropists
Canadian restaurateurs
Canadian venture capitalists
Chefs from New York City
International Culinary Center alumni
Musk family
Naturalized citizens of Canada
New York University faculty
People from Pretoria
Queen's University at Kingston alumni
Scotiabank people
SpaceX people
South African emigrants to the United States
South African environmentalists
South African people of British descent
South African people of Canadian descent
South African philanthropists
Tesla, Inc. people
University of Colorado Denver people