Tech

Sergey Brin and Elon Musk's brother, Kimbal, spotted at Burning Man as attendees struggled to deal with swampy, chaotic conditions

An aerial view of the Burning Man site
Burning Man attendees were instructed to shelter in place and conserve food and water amid intensely muddy conditions on Saturday. DigitalGlobe via Getty Images
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Elon Musk's brother, Kimbal Musk, and Google cofounder Sergey Brin have been spotted at Burning Man as attendees continue to battle chaotic conditions.

A private airspace often used by tech execs and entrepreneurs to fly in and out of Burning Man was also shut down over the weekend because of the poor weather, attendees told The Wall Street Journal. Two of the biggest tech camps, Mirage Garage and Robot Heart, have been severely flooded, sources on the ground told the news outlet.

Tens of thousands of festivalgoers have been stranded in the desert after a heavy rainfall turned the Black Rock Desert into a swampy mud pit. Attendees were advised to shelter in place and conserve resources after heavy rainstorms closed roads in and out of Black Rock City, the popup town where Burning Man is held.

Attendees also told the Journal they had seen other tech figures, including bitcoin entrepreneur Brock Pierce, at the disastrous festival. Another tech founder said she had to ditch her luggage and wade through ankle-deep mud.

The Nevada event has been a favorite of business elites and was previously attended by major tech players, including Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.

The festival encourages anonymity and privacy. Nicknames and costumes often make it difficult to identify high-profile festivalgoers. Google cofounders Brin and Larry Page have reportedly attended the event repeatedly over the years. The pair even took former CEO Eric Schmidt to the arts festival more than two decades ago to see if he had what it took to become CEO.

Representatives for Musk and Brin did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside normal working hours.

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Beatrice Nolan was a tech reporter on the business news team in the UK. She joined Insider in January 2022 as a fellow on Business Insider's careers desk. Beatrice covered tech and the future of work, with a focus on artificial intelligence. Some of her stories and early experiments with ChatGPT are widely cited. Beatrice has also discussed her work covering AI trends on panels and radio shows, including NPR.She was based in Business Insider's London office and graduated from the University of  York with a bachelor's degree in English.Featured Articles:Artists say AI image generators are copying their style to make thousands of new images — and it's completely out of their control.ChatGPT was a black swan eventFinland is the world's happiest country, but Finns say we're confusing happiness for something elseThe world is splitting between those who use ChatGPT to get better, smarter, richer — and everyone elseThis man used AI to write and illustrate a children's book in one weekend. He wasn't prepared for the backlash.ChatGPT has only been around for 2 months and is causing untold chaosTwo professors who say they caught students cheating on essays with ChatGPT explain why AI plagiarism can be hard to proveChatGPT wrote college application essays. Admissions professionals said they passed for essays written by students but wouldn't have a chance at any top colleges.College professors are considering creative ways to stop students from using AI to cheatChatGPT wrote my cover letters. Here's how recruiters responded.