Rich List 2022
I
n little more than five years the
Indian-born entrepreneur Geeta
Gupta-Fisker, 47, and her 58-year-old
American-Danish husband, Henrik
Fisker, have raised more than
$1 billion of funding and driven
their electric vehicle venture onto
the US stock market.
Fisker Inc has certainly made the
California-based couple very wealthy
indeed and they qualify for our wealth
rankings on the strength of Gupta-Fisker
having joint UK and US citizenship. The
pair are now in a battle for market share
with Elon Musk’s Tesla — it’s a tantalising
tussle, not least because Musk and Fisker
have “previous”.
In 2007 Tesla hired Henrik Fisker on a
design contract after the Dane had becomefamous for his work on the BMW Z8
and Aston Martin DB9. The following year
Tesla launched legal action against Fisker,
alleging that before he left the company
the designer had stolen confidential
information to use on a vehicle he was
developing. Fisker would ultimately win
the arbitration case and Tesla was obliged
to pay more than $1 million in costs.
Fifteen years later, Fisker Inc’s all-electric
SUVs — which are being manufactured in
Austria — are expected to appear on British
roads within the next 12 months. With a
starting price of £34,990 and a range of at
least 275 miles, the Ocean promises to be a
(relatively) affordable electric car that won’t
give drivers a nasty dose of range anxiety.
And at that price it will be a whopping
£20,000 cheaper than its Tesla rival, the
Model Y. How have they managed to price
the car cheaper? Critics murmur about loss
leaders but Fisker himself claims it is down
to the speed of development. Decisions that
could take three months in a large carGeeta Gupta-Fisker and her husband’s e-vehicle business
has put them on the Rich List — and on a collision
course with the world’s richest man. Robert Watts reports
Musk, below, alleged
that Gupta-Fisker’s husband
had acquired sensitive
information from Tesla➤149= GEETA GUPTA-FISKER AND HENRIK FISKER
£1.2bn New entry ★
Electric vehicles: FiskerETHAN PINES/THE FORBES COLLECTION VIA CONTOUR, GETTY IMAGES