Burning Man has added Elon Musk’s younger brother Kimbal Musk to its board of directors, stoking concern among Burners about connections between the annual desert event and the new Republican tech oligarchy overhauling the US government.

Burning Man 2025 tickets went on sale last Wednesday, but this was not particularly newsworthy this year. Tickets did not sell out quickly in 30 minutes like they have in previous years. Though there was some marginal complaining on social media that the lowest-cost $550 tickets disappeared fast under a new $550-$3,000 “tiered and flexible” ticketing system.

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A much bigger Burning Man controversy was quietly playing out on multiple message boards and social media groups at the same time, alleging that the Burning Man Project had brought Tesla CEO and primary Donald Trump cheerleader Elon Musk’s younger brother Kimbal Musk onto its board of directors. One such post above alleges “Why is Kimbal Musk on the Burning Man Board of Directors, and why is this hidden on the website?"

Image: Burning Man (emphasis ours)

SFist looked into these claims, and we can report that yes, the first claim is true. Kimbal Musk is listed on the Burning Man Project Board of Directors in the nonprofit’s Form 990s for 2023, 2022, and 2021. (He appears in the above screenshot right above Leo Villareal, creator of the Bay Bridge’s famed Bay Lights installation.)

Though there are frankly quite a few people on the Burning Man Project Board of Directors, the board listed 33 members in 2021. Most of these members, like Kimbal Musk, serve in a completely unpaid volunteer capacity. Musk is listed as contributing an average of two hours of work per week in his board duties, so that does not sound super high-level.

(As an aside, another unpaid Burning Man Project board member is Fred Brathwaite, better known as hip-hop legend Fab 5 Freddie.)

SFist is actually not the first to report that Kimbal Musk is on the Burning Man Project Board of Directors. This was originally noted very briefly, halfway down the article “Burning Man’s Gentrification Was Inevitable” published last August in the hard-left publication Jacobin.


But yes, this does appear to be the same Kimbal Musk who is brother to Elon Musk, the Tesla and X CEO who is Donald Trump’s right-hand man, currently implementing an oligarchic dismantling of the federal government with a team of inexperienced rich kids (who are wildly misstating their results), and also promoting far-right nationalist ideology around the world. Elon Musk is trying to sledgehammer resources going to San Francisco, and seems to have a distinct hatred of the city that is the birthplace of Burning Man.  

To put it mildly, Elon Musk’s politics and worldview do not align with that of most Burners. Now there is a Musk on the organization’s board, which might shock or appall many attendees in this current political environment. So we reached out to the Burning Man Project for their thoughts on the matter.  

“Kimbal Musk joined the Burning Man Project Board of Directors in 2021, as reflected in the Form 990s,” the project’s director of communications tells SFist. “Burning Man Project Board members attend quarterly board meetings, participate in strategic conversations about the management and future of the nonprofit and Black Rock City event, and generously give their time to help Burning Man thrive and achieve its potential as an arts and cultural movement.”

And yes, Kimbal Musk is a longtime Burner, and by his own telling, has missed the event only twice since first attending in 1998.

“We appreciate the diversity of experience and perspective of the Burning Man Project Board,” the spokesperson adds. “Kimbal’s experiences and perspectives as a Burner - he first went to Black Rock City in 1998 and has only missed two events since - and entrepreneur make him a valued participant on the Board.”

There is also this claim that Kimbal Musk is “hidden on the website” of the project's board of directors, which is technically true, but not a particularly damning thing. There are eight other members of the current sitting Burning Man Project Board of Directors who are also not listed as such on the website. Nonprofits often do not update little-viewed sections of their websites, and the composition of the Burning Man board changes somewhat every year. There is nothing inherently sinister to this.

Image: Burning Man

There is also the possibility that Kimbal Musk has made significant financial donations to keep Burning Man afloat. It is well known that the organization is running a large deficit, after the substantial loss of revenue from having to cancel the event in the COVID years of 2020 and 2021. Burning Man's tax returns show that some contributor or contributors — and the forms do not say who, nor are they required to — gave the organization more than $5 million in both 2022 and 2023.

These may be two different contributors, and maybe neither was Kimbal Musk. But there is a possibility that he was named to the board for having contributed significant money to the project.

There seems to be enough here to conclude that the Kimbal Musk who is Elon Musk’s brother is the same Kimbal Musk whose social media posts says he has been to Burning Man many times, first attended with a sister named Tosca in 1998, and is now on the Burning Man Project Board of Directors. Kimbal Musk also serves on the boards of Tesla and SpaceX, and was even on the board of directors for Chipotle Mexican Grill for about six years. So this kind of thing is within his skill set.

And Kimbal Musk reliably posts on social media about his trip to Burning Man in any given year. He noted in a 2022 Medium post that he attended the previous year’s unsanctioned “Renegade Burn” when the formal event was canceled over COVID. And it appears he was one of those Burners who was stuck in the muck when Tropical Storm Hilary rainfalls rendered the Burning Man gates closed for several days in 2023.  

Again, we must reiterate that Kimbal Musk is a different person than his brother Elon Musk. His main pursuit is a restaurant chain called The Kitchen that he co-owns, with locations in Austin, Boulder, Chicago, and Denver. He also co-founded a nonprofit called Big Green that teaches kids about gardening, and additionally co-founded a company that makes shipping containers for indoor farming.

And amusingly, Kimbal Musk was the one who spilled the beans that he and Elon came to the US as illegal immigrants when they arrived here from South Africa in 1995.  

Kimbal Musk seems umpteen million times less toxic and racist than his older brother Elon. Kimbal does not have legions of children out of wedlock with a multitude of different baby-mamas, and seems happily monogamous with his wife of six years. Heck, he even posted a picture of Amanda Gorman reading her poetry at Biden’s inauguration.

Compare this to Elon Musk, today seen swinging around a chainsaw at CPAC while the estranged mother of three of his children Grimes is tweeting things like this.

But still, Kimbal Musk’s fortune is absolutely intertwined with Elon’s. His initial jolt of (non-family) wealth came when he and Elon sold their startup Zip2 to Compaq for $305 million in the year 2000. He is known to frequently make a killing by selling Tesla stock, and there have been allegations of insider trading that potentially involved collusion between the two brothers.

Could this proximity to top Trump lieutenant Elon Musk somehow benefit Burning Man? It could. Musk's federal budget cuts have resulted in 800 layoffs at the Bureau of Land Management that manages the Black Rock Desert, so Elon clearly has some influence over that agency. This could lead to easier permitting for the event on a federal level, though who knows with the mercurial Elon Musk.  

There is nothing to suggest that being Elon Musk’s brother in any way influences Kimbal Musk’s decision-making on the Burning Man Project Board of Directors. But it is certainly now a reality that Tesla wealth has a seat at the table on that board of directors.

And more importantly to people who attend Burning Man, there is now only one degree of separation between Burning Man and the top levels of the Donald Trump administration that so many Burners fear and loathe.

Related: Burning Man Admits to $14 Million Deficit, Says Ticket Price Hikes May Be in the Works [SFist]

Image: (Left) kimbalmusk via Instagram, (Right) burningman via Instagram