On Friday, Elon Musk’s younger brother Kimbal, was seen entering Rome’s Chigi Palace, the seat of Italy’s Council of Ministers and official residence of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. With him were Andrea Stroppa, a 30-year-old Italian cybersecurity expert considered to be Elon Musk’s right-hand man in the country, and Veronica Berti, wife of the world-famous tenor Andrea Bocelli. Berti told reporters inquiring about their visit that they were “taking him on a tour of various ministries to show him how it all works – we have a project.”
They were greeted by Cultural Minister Alessandro Giuli, who was similarly ambiguous about their meeting as he entered Chigi shortly after them. They were going to talk about “only good things,” the former right-wing newspaper editor told reporters. “I can’t say more or else I’d be getting ahead of myself […] If I’m part of it that generally means we’re discussing culture, all the branches of culture.”
The meeting between Kimbal Musk and his Italian hosts lasted around 45 minutes, which included a brief handshake with Prime Minister Meloni. Kimbal also met afterwards with Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right Lega party, who posted on X that they had a “pleasant conversation […] about innovation, entertainment and the infinite potential of Italian art and culture in the world.”
According to Tesla’s corporate governance page, Kimbal is an “entrepreneur, activist, and chef.” He has participated in his brother’s financing of software ventures, like Zip2, an early version of wayfinding software that the brothers sold to Compaq for $307 million in 1999. He co-founded The Kitchen in 2004, a farm-to-table restaurant group with locations in Boulder, Denver, Austin, and Chicago, as well as Square Roots, an urban farm company. Kimbal Musk also sits on the boards of SpaceX and Tesla.
Andrea Stroppa’s role in Elon Musk’s orbit has not been made clear, though he is broadly considered a representative of Musk’s interests in Italy. The 30-year-old cybersecurity expert was already known in his field, including for research that revealed the large-scale click-farming economies of Twitter and Facebook in 2013. He told Il Giornale shortly after the 2024 presidential election that he has “an advisory role in some of [Musk’s] companies and in Starlink,” and that he and the South African-born financier “often discuss some issues that concern Italy.” In October of last year, Stroppa was investigated by Italian authorities in relation to a bribery scheme over government procurement of technologies. Earlier this month, Giorgia Meloni stated that Italy may make a deal with Elon Musk’s Starlink for military communications satellites.
The lack of transparency surrounding Kimbal Musk’s meeting with Stroppa and Italian government officials has drawn harsh criticism from the Democratic Party opposing Prime Minister Meloni. “We note with dismay that Palazzo Chigi seems to have been turned into a guesthouse for Musk,” said Irene Manzi, Democratic head of the Culture Commission in the House of Representatives, “where business and family representatives are received to facilitate relations within public institutions, without any transparency on the reasons and objectives.”
