--- title: "Elon Musk’s Brother Just Laid Off Most of His Staff on a Zoom Meeting" description: "A \"smart farm\" startup founded by Elon Musk's younger brother Kimbal is shuttering most of its locations and has laid off most of its staff." date: "2023-07-24" modified: "2023-07-24" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/kimbal-musk-hydroponic-farming-startup" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "hydroponics" - "indoor farming" - "kimbal musk" - "the digest" --- # Elon Musk’s Brother Just Laid Off Most of His Staff on a Zoom Meeting ![A "smart farm" startup founded by Elon Musk's younger brother Kimbal is shuttering most of its locations and has laid off most of its staff.]() *AUSTIN, TEXAS - MARCH 14: Kimbal Musk speaks onstage at Move Over NFTs. Here Come the DAOs during the 2022 SXSW Conference and Festivals at Austin Convention Center on March 14, 2022 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Chris Saucedo/Getty Images fpr SXSW) \Image: Getty Images\* ## Grow Op A hydroponic "smart farm" startup co-founded by Elon Musk's cowboy hat-wearing younger brother Kimbal is shuttering most of its locations and has laid off the majority of its staff. According to two [now-former employees who spoke to *Insider*](), the Square Roots "[vertical farming]()" startup that the younger Musk co-founded with Welsh entrepreneur Tobias Peggs back in 2016 abruptly let most of its employees go on a Zoom call last week — a move that seemed to come out of nowhere, the ex-staffers said. "It was just a normal day," one of the former employees at the startup's Grand Rapids, Michigan location told *Insider*. "We were in the middle of production and everyone received an email and Slack saying essentially 'Drop everything and attend this Zoom call.'' There was really no context as to why this was happening so suddenly and everybody was kind of shocked." As the report notes, the company that offered high-tech indoor vertical farming modules had, until last week, locations in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Kentucky — and earlier this year [shuttered its Brooklyn, New York flagship]() as well. ## Do No Farm The closure of many of these farms, which were operated in partnership with Gordon Food Service, was particularly surprising given that multiple of its locations had just opened within the last year. It's currently unclear exactly how many people were laid off, though the company had nearly 200 employees as of June [per the PitchBook venture capital database](). In a statement [given to the local broadcaster *WDRB*]() in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a company spokesperson said that the closures were due to a shift in its business model to "farming as a service." "We're now operating our controlled climate farms exclusively for our strategic partners," the company told the local broadcaster. "As we've made this move, we have had to pause commercial production in some of our facilities while we reconfigure them to be more suitable for servicing customers under the Farming as a Service model, and we look forward to bringing these facilities back on line in the future." Whether that future includes the now-laid-off employees, however, remains to be seen. "It was framed as a temporary thing, but the layoffs didn't feel temporary," one of the former employees told *Insider*. "It wasn't like they were saying 'You guys will be offered your jobs back' at any point." That same ex-employee described the layoffs as "devastating." "A lot of us feel like we have to start from ground zero now," they added. **More on the Musk family:** [*Elon Musk's Dad Says His Son's Whole Career Was Funded by That Emerald Mine*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()