Square Roots, an indoor “smart farm” co-owned by Elon Musk’s brother Kimbal, has closed down four of its five locations and laid off most of its employees on Tuesday. The farming startup opened in 2016, producing herbs, greens, and salad mixes using artificial light in an indoor environment before distributing the produce to local and regional grocery stores.
A former employee at the Grands Rapids location told Business Insider that the staff was notified mid-shift on Tuesday to drop what they were doing and tune in for a Zoom meeting where they were informed production would halt immediately. They were informed there would be layoffs and those affected would receive an email shortly.
“It was just a normal day,” the former Grand Rapids employee said of the latest layoffs and farm closures announced Tuesday. “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 no context as to why this was happening so suddenly and everybody was kind of shocked.”
A company spokesperson told WDRB it is now altering its business model to work “exclusively for our strategic partners” to explore more methods of finding profitable ways to produce quality crops and grow high-calorie food indoors. However, Square Roots claimed in a statement issued to the outlet on Thursday that “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.”
While Square Roots reportedly assured its employees that this would be nothing more than a “pause,” an unnamed source who took part in the call told WDRB that the company wasn’t retaining any employees.
The Grand Rapids ex-employee told Insider, “It was framed as a temporary thing, but the layoffs didn’t feel temporary.” They added, “It wasn’t like they were saying ‘You guys will be offered your jobs back’ at any point.”
Square Roots co-founder and CEO, Tobias Peggs, confirmed the company was closing its Brooklyn location in a January news release, saying at the time that 49 employees had been impacted. In light of the new closures, the number of staff who were laid off has not been released. Peggs claimed in the news release that the decision is “broadly in line with the current wave of layoffs across the tech sector,” adding, “Though, I appreciate that will be of little comfort to those impacted.”
The closures come less than six months after Square Roots opened locations in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Kentucky, all of which will be closed in addition to its first branch in Brooklyn, New York. Kimbal Musk told CNN in 2020 that he had aspired to form Square Roots to bring people together, just as cooking brought his family together when he was a kid. However, the abrupt “pause” on the majority of the Square Roots locations without a clear-cut explanation and no information about whether or not the sites will reopen has ex-employees feeling dejected.
“A lot of us feel like we have to start from ground zero now,” the Grand Rapids employee told Insider. “There’s not a lot of hydroponic startups in Michigan, so it’s tough on everybody.”
Square Roots did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
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