Henrik Fisker, the founding father of failed EV startup Fisker Inc., and his spouse Geeta quietly wound down a personal charitable basis established in late 2021 that was presupposed to “incubate innovation in healthcare, schooling, sustainability, mobility, and all causes that assist help the planet and enhance and additional the lives of individuals and animals.”
A tax filing submitted to the Inside Income Service in December 2024 — six months after Fisker Inc. went bankrupt — was marked as the inspiration’s “ultimate return.” The submitting was made public earlier this 12 months.
The Geeta & Henrik Fisker Basis, because it was recognized, in the end solely made round $100,000 in grants throughout its three-year existence. Henrik Fisker didn’t reply to messages looking for remark.
The transient existence of the Fiskers’ basis is one other instance of how the growth of electrical automobile startups within the 2020s — a lot of which went public through particular objective acquisition firm (SPAC) mergers — helped gasoline a rush of wide-eyed optimism.
When Rivian went public through a standard IPO in 2021, it introduced its personal basis, flush with 1% of the EV firm’s fairness. Whereas that stake was value round $643 million at one level, it will definitely shrank to beneath $100 million. However the Rivian Basis continues to be kicking. The nonprofit gave out its first $10 million in grants final 12 months, and its website reveals that the inspiration has made one other $2.2 million in donations up to now throughout 2025.
The Fiskers created their basis in late 2021, IRS filings present, roughly one 12 months after the corporate went public by merging with a SPAC. They transferred 229,000 shares of firm inventory to the nonprofit in December of that 12 months, which had been collectively value round $4 million on the time of the donation. The couple additionally seem to have contributed round $5,000 in money that first 12 months. (Geeta Gupta Fisker was Fisker Inc.’s chief monetary and chief working officer.)
The corporate didn’t announce the institution of the husband-and-wife crew’s basis until February 14, 2022. Whereas the press launch touted the $4 million determine, by that time Fisker’s inventory value had fallen sufficient that the worth of the nonprofit’s stake within the firm had already sunk to round $2.7 million.
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The muse didn’t make any grants that first fiscal 12 months, filings present. When the fiscal 12 months ended on September 30, 2022, the worth of the shares had fallen to round $1.7 million.
Fisker’s inventory value continued to slide as the corporate put its electrical SUV into manufacturing in late 2022, started deliveries in mid-2023, and struggled to promote the flawed EV — all of which apparently restricted the inspiration’s scope.
Within the basis’s 2022 fiscal 12 months (which ended on September 30, 2023), it made only one grant value $92,287 to a JP Morgan “Charitable Present Fund,” in line with a filing. The Fiskers solely contributed $9,500 in money to the inspiration that 12 months, too, that means the shares — the overall worth of which sunk once more to round $1.4 million — had been practically all it had by way of property.
The newest submitting, which closes out the nonprofit, reveals only one grant within the basis’s ultimate 12 months: The Fiskers contributed one other $1,988 to the identical JP Morgan fund.
The Geeta & Henrik Fisker Basis was not the couple’s solely supply of charity, though particulars about their different giving are laborious to return by.
The 2022 press launch notes that the Fiskers “supported varied causes, together with these engaged in schooling and healthcare initiatives” since founding the EV startup in 2016.
The discharge additionally states that the Fiskers donated round $1.9 million value of firm inventory in December 2021 to what’s generally known as a donor-advised fund (DAF). That donation got here from the Fiskers’ private belief, although, an SEC submitting reveals — not from the Geeta & Henrik Fisker Basis. And neither the press launch nor the SEC submitting say which DAF acquired the shares.
DAFs are a considerably controversial instrument for philanthropic giving. Whereas individuals who donate to DAFs can nonetheless dictate the place these funds in the end go, that info doesn’t need to be revealed to the general public. Within the meantime, donating inventory to a DAF can enable the individual making the contribution to deduct the worth of that inventory from their taxes — even when the inventory worth sinks.
DAFs can even grasp onto that cash for an indiscriminate period of time. It’s subsequently inconceivable to know whether or not the DAF that acquired the $1.9 million in Fisker shares made any grants earlier than or after the worth of these shares sank.