Elon Musk Hits at Longtime Auto Rival: 'How Ironic' The Tesla CEO reignited his feud with former coworker and current competitor, Henrik Fisker, on Twitter this week.
By Emily Rella
Elon Musk is known for many things, but being non-contentious certainly is not one of them.
The billionaire showed this again on Thursday when he re-ignited his feud with longtime auto rival Henrik Fisker, head of EV company Fisker Inc.
The two squared off in the past after Fisker, who worked as a design consultant for Tesla in 2007 and helped champion the initial Model S, was sued a year later after Musk and Tesla alleged that he stole the company's design technology and took it to develop new electric vehicles for his own namesake company, Fisker Coachbuild.
Fisker and Musk competed for the next few years when Fisker debuted the Karma hybrid before Musk and Tesla could get the Model S to market. Fisker Automotive shut down in 2013 due to unforeseen circumstances including a battery supplier bankruptcy and the loss of cars due to Hurricane Sandy.
In 2016, Fisker launched Fisker Inc., which is focused on all-electric vehicles, whereas Fisker Automotive was focused on hybrid vehicles.
On Wednesday, Tesla-focused publication Teslarati tweeted out an article about how executives from motor company DeLorean were being sued by Karma automotive for "pursuing venture" during the development of the company's EVs.
Musk bluntly responded to the Tweet with his own two cents.
"How ironic, that's what Henrik Fisker did to Tesla in 2007! Karma is a …," Musk quipped.
Fisker didn't respond on the platform nor could he, after he notoriously deleted his Twitter account in April, shortly after Musk announced his bid to purchase the social media company.
"I believe 100% in free speech. But I do not want my free speech to be actively managed or controlled by a competitor," Fisker wrote on Instagram at the time, in a now-deleted post. "And I do not want a competitor to determine how my followers experience Fisker as we grow our company. #Fisker #Love #EV."
Tesla was up nearly 5% in a one-year period as of Friday morning.
