Henrik Fisker, the founding father of failed EV startup Fisker Inc., and his spouse Geeta quietly wound down a non-public 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 submitting submitted to the Inner Income Service in December 2024 — six months after Fisker Inc. went bankrupt — was marked as the inspiration’s “closing return.” The submitting was made public earlier this 12 months.
The Geeta & Henrik Fisker Basis, because it was identified, finally 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 increase of electrical automobile startups within the 2020s — lots of which went public through particular goal acquisition firm (SPAC) mergers — helped gas a rush of wide-eyed optimism.
When Rivian went public through a conventional 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 underneath $100 million. However the Rivian Basis remains to be kicking. The nonprofit gave out its first $10 million in grants final 12 months, and its web site exhibits that the inspiration has made one other $2.2 million in donations to this point 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 have 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 group’s basis till 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 Reward Fund,” based on a submitting. 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 — have been almost all it had by way of belongings.
The newest submitting, which closes out the nonprofit, exhibits only one grant within the basis’s closing 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 tasks” 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 referred to as a donor-advised fund (DAF). That donation got here from the Fiskers’ private belief, although, an SEC submitting exhibits — 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 finally go, that data doesn’t should be revealed to the general public. Within the meantime, donating inventory to a DAF can enable the particular person making the contribution to deduct the worth of that inventory from their taxes — even when the inventory worth sinks.
DAFs may also dangle on to that cash for an indiscriminate period of time. It’s subsequently not possible 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.
