Kimbal Reeve Musk (born 20 September 1972) is a South African
restaurateur, chef, and entrepreneur. He owns The Kitchen Restaurant Group, a collection of "community" restaurants located in
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
,
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, and
Indianapolis. 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 50 ...
that has built hundreds of outdoor classrooms called "Learning Gardens" in schoolyards across America.
Musk is also the co-founder and chairman of Square Roots, an urban farming company in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York City, growing food in hydroponic, indoor, climate controlled shipping containers. Musk currently sits on the boards of
Tesla Inc. and
SpaceX, both of which his brother
Elon is the current CEO. He was on the board of
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (, ), often known simply as Chipotle, is an American chain of fast casual restaurants specializing in bowls, tacos and Mission burritos made to order in front of the customer. Chipotle operates restaurants in the Uni ...
from 2013 to 2019. He is the brother of Elon Musk and
Tosca Musk, son of
Errol and
Maye Musk
Maye Musk (''née'' Haldeman; born April 19, 1948) is a model and dietitian. She has been a model for 50 years, appearing on the covers of magazines, including a ''Time'' magazine health edition, ''Women's Day'', international editions of ''V ...
, and a major shareholder in Tesla.
In 1995 he co-founded, with his brother, Elon Musk, the software company
Zip2
Zip2 was a company that provided and licensed online city guide software to newspapers. The company was founded in Palo Alto, California as Global Link Information Network in 1995, by Greg Kouri and brothers Elon and Kimbal Musk. Initially, Gl ...
, which was acquired by
Compaq
Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...
for $307 million in 1999.
Early life
Musk grew up with his brother
Elon, 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 Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language drama ...
, and many cousins. His mother,
Maye Musk
Maye Musk (''née'' Haldeman; born April 19, 1948) is a model and dietitian. She has been a model for 50 years, appearing on the covers of magazines, including a ''Time'' magazine health edition, ''Women's Day'', international editions of ''V ...
, is a dietician and model and his father Errol Musk had his own engineering practice. After finishing high school in
Pretoria
Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa.
Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foot ...
, South Africa, Musk left to meet his brother in
Kingston, Ontario
Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the north-eastern end of Lake Ontario, at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River (south end of the Rideau Canal). The city is midway between To ...
, Canada, and enrolled at
Queen's University to pursue a degree in business. While in school, Musk first worked at
Scotiabank. He graduated with his degree from Queen's University in 1995.
Business career
Musk's first entrepreneurship 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 a company that provided and licensed online city guide software to newspapers. The company was founded in Palo Alto, California as Global Link Information Network in 1995, by Greg Kouri and brothers Elon and Kimbal Musk. Initially, Gl ...
. Zip2 was an online city guide that provided content for the new online versions of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' and the ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...
'' newspapers. The company was sold in 1999 to
Compaq
Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...
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
X.com was an online bank co-founded by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho in 1999 in Palo Alto, California. In 2000, X.com merged with competitor Confinity Inc., a software company also based in Palo Alto. Musk was attracte ...
, an online financial services and email payments company. X.com merged with
PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...
, which in October 2002 was acquired by
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...
for $1.5 billion in stock.
![TheKitchen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/TheKitchen.jpg)
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 with
Jen Lewin and Hugo Matheson. The Kitchen has been named one of "America's Top Restaurants" according to ''
Food & Wine'',
Zagat’s, ''
Gourmet
Gourmet (, ) is a cultural idea associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by refined, even elaborate preparations and presentations of aesthetically balanced meals of several contrasting, of ...
'',
OpenTable
OpenTable is an online restaurant-reservation service company founded by Sid Gorham, Eric Moe and Chuck Templeton on 2 July 1998 and is based in San Francisco, California.
In 1998, operations began with a limited selection of restaurants in ...
,
and the
James Beard Foundation
The James Beard Foundation is a New York City-based national non-profit culinary arts organization named in honor of James Beard, a prolific food writer, teacher, and cookbook author, who was also known as the "Dean of American Cookery." The prog ...
.
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. There is over of office space in downtown Denver, with 132,000 workers.
The downtown area consists mostly of the neighborhoods of Uni ...
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 50 ...
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 USA.
In December 2012, Chicago Mayor
Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician and diplomat who is the current United States Ambassador to Japan. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served two terms as the 55th Mayor of Chicago from 2011 ...
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 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'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
, ''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', ''Fast Company
''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year.
History
''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan Web ...
'', ''WIRED
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San ...
'', ''Chicago Sun Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'', '' CBS News'', ''Business Insider
''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German pub ...
'', ''Entrepreneur Magazine
''Entrepreneur'' is an American magazine and website that carries news stories about entrepreneurship, small business management, and business. The magazine was first published in 1977. It is published by ''Entrepreneur Media Inc''., headquarte ...
'', 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 and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
.
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, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identifie ...
. 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. Tesla designs and manufactures electric vehicles (electric cars and trucks), battery energy storage from home to grid- ...
worth $25,604,000. 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 $108,000,000 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 three children together. They later divorced. He lives in Boulder, Colorado. In April 2018, he married Christiana Wyly, an environmental activist and the daughter of billionaire Sam Wyly
Samuel Evans Wyly (born October 4, 1934) is an American businessman. He first appeared on ''Forbes''s list of richest Americans in 2000 with a net worth of $750 million, and he remained on that list throughout 2010 with a net worth of $1 billio ...
.
Controversy
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
White South African people