Elon Musk Unfollows His Own Brother on Twitter

Elon Musk has seemingly hit the unfollow button on his own brother, fellow entrepreneur Kimbal Musk.

The Tesla CEO and owner of Twitter currently only follows 166 people on his social media platform, but Kimbal currently doesn't make the cut.

The move was first noticed by the automated Twitter account @BigTechAlert. Starting its alert with the eyes emoji, they wrote, "[Elon Musk] (Great person. Please do not ban this bot.) is no longer following [Kimbal]."

Social media users and journalists are speculating online that Elon's decision to unfollow his brother is related to pressure being put on Elon by the rest of the Tesla board members.

The South African brothers are longtime collaborators who have worked together on a number of Elon's major career projects. Kimbal currently sits on the boards of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, both companies in which have Elon as the current CEO.

Neither brother has publicly acknowledged Elon's apparent decision to unfollow his brother.

Kimbal currently still follows Elon on Twitter. It is not clear exactly when Musk decided to unfollow his brother, but he does still currently follow his sister Tosca Musk, and his mother Maye Musk.

Responding to the apparent family feud, a Twitter user pointed out that warring brothers is a trending topic right now. "Well, why should Harry and William get all the attention?" asked Ron Rosell.

Despite the apparent fallout, Attorney Andrew Lieb, of Lieb at Law, doesn't think the Musk businesses will be affected.

"Kimbal and Elon are trying to take the throne from Harry and William in terms of family drama. However, just like Harry and William, we already know who is the spare and who is ruling in the family," Lieb told Newsweek.

"Yes, it's interesting gossip that Elon unfollowed Kimbal on Twitter, but at the end of the day, corporate governance of Tesla and Space X, where both sit on the board, won't be impacted by family drama."

He continued: "Corporations make decisions by determining what is going to make them the most money and therefore, the real story is that the corporate board of Tesla appears to be tired of Elon playing social media king over at Twitter rather than working as their CEO and fixing their 60-plus percent drop from peak."

Kimbal, 50, is a year younger than his older brother Elon. They grew up together in Pretoria, South Africa. When they were in their 20s, the pair co-founded the software company Zip2, which they later sold for $307 million in 1999.

Kimbal once told Vanity Fair that he and Elon would literally wrestle each other as they made decisions on how Zip2 should be run. He wouldn't say who won, but he said, "[My brother's] bigger than me, but I have my ways."

After this venture, the brothers took slightly different paths but remained intertwined with various businesses. Kimbal co-founded the restaurant chain The Kitchen in 2004 with his ex-wife Jen Lewin and Hugo Matheson.

In February 2021, Kimbal was investigated by the SEC after he sold 88,500 shares of Tesla on the same day Elon sent out a Twitter poll asking if he should sell 10 percent of his own shares.

Despite this, Kimbal remains one of Tesla's largest individual shareholders, according to Investopedia. His 629,740 shares represent a total of 0.07 percent of Tesla's total shares. He's been on the Tesla board of directors since 2004, a year after it was founded.

Kimbal has also been a board member of Space X since 2002, the same year Elon founded the space exploration company.

Elon's decision to unfollow his brother won't affect the business, unless the chasm between the pair widens, according to PR expert Ryan McCormick.

"Unless Elon or his brother start to publicly pull a Prince Harry and reveal closely guarded business or family secrets, the seas should remain calm," the Crisis Communications Expert and Co-Founder of Goldman McCormick PR told Newsweek.

"Elon may have unfollowed his brother for a number of reasons, including that Kimbal was posting content that he found boring or annoying. As brothers and business associates, they probably see and communicate with each other often. They don't have to be BFF's over social media," he said.

Newsweek has reached out to representatives for Kimbal and Elon Musk for further comment.

This article was updated at 10:00 am ET on 01/10/2023 to include commentary from McCormick and Lieb.