The Musk name has become a household one in recent times thanks to the exploits of Elon Musk. The Tesla founder’s journey from an abusive childhood to the world’s richest man has been well chronicled. Also worthy of note is his eccentricity as well as plans to colonize Mars. Such an ambitious persona has seen Elon Musk grow into a phenomenon that can send the value of companies or commodities tumbling or increasing with a single tweet. He is not the only person making waves in his family though. He has a sister named Tosca who is a filmmaker.
Another Musk that is doing quite well is his younger brother, Kimbal. Also blessed with technological prowess and business savviness, Kimbal has joined hands with his brother to found some of his famous tech start-ups. He also sits on the board of several tech companies and has invested in them as well. Beyond the tech industry, the younger Musk is a trained chef and restaurateur. He is bringing ground-shaking innovations to the food industry and all these have helped accumulate a net worth of not less than $500 million.
How Kimbal Musk Acquired his $500 Million Net Worth
He Co-founded the popular tech start-up, Zip2.
We all know that Elon Musk first made his name and fortune from the online city guide software company known as Zip2. What is not well known is the fact that his younger brother, Kimbal, also joined hands with him to create the software. Both brothers deprived themselves of a lot of things to get the company off the ground and their efforts were rewarded when their company attracted the patronage of reputable publications such as the New York Times and Chicago Tribune. Zip2 was later sold off to Compaq for the sum of $307 million in 1999. Kimbal’s share of the deal was $15 million.
He Sits On the Board of Several Companies Including Tesla and SpaceX
The sale of Zip2 left Kimbal Musk with lots of cash and he wisely used same to invest in several tech start-ups. One of them was X.com, an online financial services and email payment that his brother, Elon, had founded. X.com was later merged with another company to form PayPal. PayPal grew to be one of the biggest providers of online payment and by 2002, it was sold for a whopping $1.5 billion. There is no information on what Kimbal made from the deal but it possibly ran into tens of millions of dollars.
With that money, the young man went ahead to buy substantial shareholdings in several companies that were subsequently founded by his brother namely the space exploration technologies company, SpaceX (founded in 2002), and the electric vehicle maker, Tesla (est. 2003). Both companies are now worth tens of billions of dollars each and Kimbal Musk sits on their board of directors given his substantial shareholding.
Elon Musk’s brother Kimbal, a Tesla board member, sold $25.56 million worth of shares in the open market this week with all the trades made above $850. Did he just call a $TSLA top? https://t.co/mp02bmJj4n
— MarketWatch (@MarketWatch) February 11, 2021
For instance, he has about 600,000 shares in Tesla, making him the fifth-largest internal shareholder in the company. He however offloaded about 5% of it, about 30,000 shares, in February 2021. The deal fetched him around $25 million given that one Tesla share was worth $850 at that time. Beyond Tesla and SpaceX, Kimbal Musk also served as the board member of Chipotle Mexican Grill (a chain of fast-casual restaurants that specialize in tacos and burritos) from 2013 to 2019.
Kimbal Musk is a Director in These Companies
- Tesla
- SpaceX
- Chipotle Mexican Grill (2013 – 2019)
Kimbal Musk is the Executive Chairman of Several Restaurants and Food-Based Companies.
Kimbal Musk trained to be a chef at the French culinary institute in New York in the early 2000s. Upon graduating, he set about establishing his sustainable restaurant named the Kitchen Boulder. Now known as the Kitchen Restaurant Group, this is a collection of restaurants that sources its food responsibly from local farmers. The model has proved successful since its inception and the group has been named one of America’s top restaurants. It also has an offshoot brand known as Next Door Eatery. Next Door Eatery is an urban-casual eatery and has as many as 10 locations.
Another innovative food establishment that Kimbal Musk heads are Square Root Urban Growers. The company was founded in August 2016 and aims to encourage farmers to grow real food in indoor climate-controlled farms without using pesticides or GMOs. The farmers also get access to the cloud-connected farms as well as data which helps them find ways to grow more food with fewer resources.
Our Greek Salad @nextdooreatery is sexy AF. Just sayin’ ???????? pic.twitter.com/2ixr8kOuH9
— ???????????????????????? ???????????????? (@kimbal) February 17, 2021
Kimbal Musk is also the chairman of the Big Green, formerly Kitchen Community. Founded in 2011, this is not a money-making operation for him but rather a non-profit. The non-profit is geared towards ensuring that kids have access to a healthier diet. To this end, they have established learning gardens in hundreds of schools across the United States. The learning gardens teach children an understanding of food, healthy eating, lifestyle choices, and the environment. Musk has thus far pumped about $25 million into the project.
Companies Co-founded and Chaired by Kimbal Musk
- Kitchen Group formerly Kitchen Boulder
- Square Root Urban Growers
- Big Green formerly Kitchen Community
He has invested in several companies including Everytable and Memphis Meats
Even to this present day, Kimbal Musk remains an active investor and has committed substantial portions of his net worth to companies whose vision he believes in. They include EveryTable, Profitboss, Memphis Meats, Cloud9, and Passionflix.
EveryTable is a restaurant chain that is focused on delivering healthy and affordable food to people. It charges rich customers higher prices than those from the lower-income bracket. The company utilizes tech innovations around ordering, forecasting, pricing, and reducing food wastage. EveryTable has done credibly well since its establishment in 2015 and in 2018, they conducted a funding round wherein they raised about $5.3 million from the likes of Maria Shriver, Acumen, and Musk.
Have ya'll met Dorcia Whitebrake yet?! If not, be sure to stop by our new Hollywood store to say hello and meet our first Social Equity franchise candidate ????. pic.twitter.com/TfN7nlSUSh
— foreverytable (@foreverytable) February 19, 2021
On the other hand, Profitboss is a free online food-ordering service that allows restaurants to accept orders without being charged a commission. This enables them to retain their profits. They also get access to all of their customer data which they can now use in online marketing campaigns. Profitboss enjoyed a surge in popularity amidst the covid-19 pandemic of 2020 and this attracted several investors, including Kimbal Musk and musicians, The Chainsmokers, who put in $3.5 million.
Another company that Kimbal has also invested in his sister’s company, Passionflix. Passionflix is a streaming service that is dedicated to romantic movies and series alone. The service has several licensed contents on offer. They also plan to release original content and will spend about a million on each project. Kimbal’s sister embarked on fundraising in 2017 and he was amongst those who invested a combined $4.75 million.
Announcing the closing of our Series B round. We raised $161M to scale production, grow our team, and work hard to make cell-based meat a reality to our consumers. We welcome @SoftBank Group, @NorwestVP, @Temasek, and others who join our mission to sustainably feed the world. pic.twitter.com/tWkZrL8YEj
— UPSIDE Foods (@upsidefoods) January 22, 2020
Another innovative food company that Kimbal Musk has invested in is Memphis Meats. This is a California-based start-up that aims to reduce man’s dependence on traditional livestock farming, which impacts the environment negatively. Rather, they take cells from animals and grow them in cultivators thus resulting in clean meat. The company was founded in 2015 and five years later, it raised $161 million from several investors including Musk, Bill Gates, and Richard Branson.
Musk has also spread his tentacles to the sporting world by investing in the Esports brand, Cloud9. Cloud9 was formed in 2013 and has gone on to become one of the most popular teams in North America. They have won several tournaments. They have also won many awards including the best Esports team at the 2016 game awards. Rather than selling out, the founders of Cloud9 have retained control and sought funds to carry out their expansion. They conducted a funding round in 2017 which raised about $3 million from the likes of Alexis Ohanian, retired QB, Joe Montana, and of course, Musk, etc.
Companies That Kimbal Musk has Invested In
- EveryTable
- ProfitBoss
- Passionflix
- Memphis Meats
- Cloud9
