Elon Musk rival Henrik Fisker quits Twitter for Instagram
Fisker and Musk have competed in the electric car space since 2007
A day after Twitter's board accepted Tesla CEO Elon Musk's $44 billion buyout offer, the accounts of most automakers and their executives remain active on the social media platform, but one has left in protest.
Henrik Fisker and Elon Musk have been rivals in the electric car space since 2007. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images | Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)
Henrik Fisker, founder of electric vehicle startup Fisker Inc., called it quits shortly after the deal was announced and informed his followers he'd be using Instagram in the future.
Henrik Fisker's last tweet. (Twitter)
"Please follow me on IG from now on if you want updates. Thanks. #Fisker #Love #EV #ESG #ClimateCrisis #follow," Fisker tweeted before deleting his account.
Fisker had 86,600 followers at the time, compared to Musk's 84.6 million.
The account for Fisker Inc. remained active as of Tuesday morning, however.
The Fisker Karma went on sale as a 2012 model. (Peter Foley/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Fisker and Musk have a long history as rivals in the electric car space. Fisker's former company, Fisker Automotive, was launched in 2007 and put the Karma plug-in hybrid luxury sedan on sale in 2011 just before the electric Tesla Model S hit the market. The company was hampered by issues with its battery pack and the bankruptcy of its supplier soon after deliveries began, however, and lost a shipment of vehicles from the factory in Finland that built them in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy struck Port Newark, New Jersey, where they were being stored.
Fisker left the company in 2013 and it went bankrupt soon after, with its assets sold to China's Wanxiang Group the following year. The Department of Energy recorded a $139 million loss on a green vehicle loan that had been granted to Fisker during the process.
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Fisker went on to found Fisker Inc. in 2016 and shifted from hybrids to all-electric vehicles, the first of which is scheduled to enter production in November at contract manufacturer Magna's facility in Austria.
The Fisker Ocean is scheduled to enter production in November 2022. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
Fisker's first Instagram post following his departure from Twitter was a video of him test-driving the vehicle, called the Ocean, at Magna's test track, with one commenter writing "Damn!!! that's almost as fast as you running away from Elon on Twitter!"
