Meet the world's youngest billionaire businessman who models on the side

When you think of salmon you might think of it perched on a blini, winking at you from within a sushi roll or atop a bagel and schmear. The fish is so globally popular, it even has its own Pantone hue named after it. But when you think of salmon, what you’re also thinking of is the yield of a multi-billion dollar farming industry, with all five of the largest producers hailing from Norway (unless we’re talking wild salmon, naturally).

SalMar is the fourth biggest producer, making its largest shareholder Gustav Magnar Witzøe, 29, one of the world’s youngest billionaires. Witzøe is handsome in a James Dean-ish way, meaning he is objectively good-looking. He could be a male model – wait, no – he is a male model; with cheekbones sharp enough to cut ice (probably useful in Trondheim, the Norwegian city along a fjord, where he resides). Though he looks like he could be cast in season two of Young Royals, his real-life story is even more farfetched than any teen Netflix drama.

His fortune and position at the company were gifted to him at the tender age of 23 – a move made by his father, also named Gustav Witzøe, to avoid inheritance tax. In 2013, as owner of nearly half of the company, Witzøe firmly cemented his status as one of the wealthiest people in the world. This summoned its fair share of media attention at the time; difficult for someone who is by their own admission “shy”.

Our in-person interview, which was meant to take place in Oslo, was rescinded and replaced with a Zoom call (a result of Covid), which he takes from home. Witzøe has his video off, which he accounts to his camera not working, but I suspect he might just prefer to chat this way. “I'm kind of more like an introvert person than an extrovert,” he says. “Of course, I like to be sociable, but I'm also really happy in my own company, and I think the sound of silence is always good for reflections, and I'm really happy to stay by myself, too.”

Though his Instagram, populated with images of glamorous vacations and Louis Vuitton luggage, is the term ‘international playboy’ manifested, it’s a far cry from Witzøe's Trondheim upbringing. An idyllic childhood included attending the local school, in a very understated Norwegian fashion. “There were five kids in my class, so that's like 20 kids in the whole school,” he says.

“I was born and brought upon a typical Norwegian small coastal island,” Witzøe says. “It was very nice. I could never have asked for a better upbringing.” As peaceful a childhood as it was, there was a lot of controversy later on surrounding his father's decision to make him SalMar ’s big gest shareholder at such a young age. “It was my father who said that by looking back that he wished he had maybe thought about it. But at the same time, my parents had no idea how big this company would be.”

It has been just over 30 years since his father founded the SalMar ASA fish farm in 1991 in Frøya. Since then, the company has grown from 11 to around 1,700 employees. It is one of the biggest producers of farmed salmon globally, selling fish across Asia, the United States, Canada, the Russian Federation and of course Norway, where it all started.

Although less polluting than the traditional livestock industries such as poultry and the big greenhouse emitter, beef, salmon farming has not been free of scrutiny. In 2021, a report found that global salmon farming was harming marine life, causing an estimated $50 billion worth of damage between 2013 and 2019. This damage is attributed to pollution, parasites (sea lice) and a jump in fish mortality rates.

As I’m speaking to the owner of one of the world’s largest salmon farming companies, it feels prudent to ask his thoughts on this. “If you're going to do food production on a large scale, there are going to be some challenges and some environmental concerns, of course,” Witzøe says. “And the main way I think about that is to try to find the problems and realise that they exist, but also work on solving them because I don't think going back to self-sufficiency is a realistic option and we need large scale food production.” He handles difficult questions with the dexterity you’d expect of a seasoned executive far beyond his years.

He isn’t a loud or brash character, which feels somewhat like a betrayal of his public persona. “I think people think that I'm arrogant and that I maybe come across arrogant, but that's only because I'm shy.” Sometimes this reputation for arrogance stems from other behaviour. When he was 19 years old, Witzøe served two weeks in prison for a speeding incident after being arrested for driving 180 kph in a 60 kph zone. While this wasn’t widely written about at the time, a journalist asked him about it a few years later, prompting Witzøe to address the incident publicly.

“I thought I was just going to be honest, and I think the reaction was good,” he says. “I was just honest about having made a mistake, and I think a lot of people can recognise being young and doing something stupid. As long as you admit that you made a mistake and don't repeat it and take the punishment.”

The arrest has done nothing to stifle an intriguing narrative that a quick Google search suggests, which shows our protagonist smoking, shirtless, and littered with tattoos – a stereotypical bad boy billionaire. By contrast, the Witzøe I’m speaking to is refreshingly mild-mannered and subdued. “I have the same tattoo artist I have always used since I was 18 when I got my first tattoo,” he says.

He has a tattoo of two small angels on his arm in tribute to his mother and father. As an only child, he and his parents are incredibly close. “It's always been the three of us... and my parents have always given me the best upbringing, and I have a lot of respect for them and love for them. They are still my chief influences and still my greatest inspiration, so that's why I got the tattoo of them.”

There seem to be two sides to Witzøe. The more visible side is his work as a model, which he got into as a way of getting out of his comfort zone. “I think fashion is really exciting and I'm a bit shy by nature. So it's kind of a fun way to challenge yourself. It's not something I would normally do, and it's something I see as a challenge.” His favourite designers run the gamut from luxury to streetwear: “I think Kim Jones is really good. But I also like Jerry Lorenzo from Fear of God. That's one of my favourites.”

Alongside modelling he is also making waves as an angel investor, having backed Key Butler and Gobi (a competitor to Snapchat) among others. Together with friend and serial entrepreneur Øystein R. Skiri, he founded the fund Wiski Capital. “I think the most important thing that we try to do is invest more in people than in the industries. I think it's better to invest in a great person with a bad idea than in a good idea, and people behind it who are not passionate.”

His greatest lesson was seeing his father build a business from the ground up. “I've observed from the inside what it takes to be an entrepreneur and how much passion and determination and hard work you need to be an entrepreneur. Of course, it's different capacities for different industries, but I still think I learnt a lot from seeing it from the inside.”

The decision to join the tech world could be seen as baby steps towards the takeover of the family business. “Obviously my family has a really big company and it's kind of hard to go into that and try to learn from that because it's so big. So my thought was if we invest in a small company, I can go there and maybe try and learn something from that.” Although going from helping startups to running the family business seems like a natural progression, Witzøe doesn’t seem like he’s in any rush to do so. “That calls for someone who is really motivated and passionate about it. And that may not be me, or at least not right now, and may never be. But of course, as an owner there is a certain responsibility I have to take.”

I suggest that there must be a lot of pressure that comes with managing and preserving a business that your family has created. “I think complaining about that would be kind of ridiculous when you're born into this much privilege,” Witzøe responds. “But there is a responsibility for developing and managing the values created. And above all, all the employees in the company. I think that's the biggest pressure of it.”

As someone who could have, ostensibly, done nothing, he chooses to keep himself very busy, effectively managing two careers and, to use Gen Z parlance, his ‘side-hustle’, which he has been quietly working on until now. ‘W Initiative’ is an undertaking so monumental I’m surprised it ’s not the first thing he mentioned when we started the interview, but then again Witzøe is someone who doesn't give much away without being asked. “This is the biggest project I've been working on in the last year, so I'm really happy now it’s live. Now we have finally started to find organisations we want to work on,” he says. The philanthropic endeavour, which is being spearheaded by Witzøe himself, has raised seed capital of NOK 110 million.

The venture was launched in September 2021 and gives money to organisations that provide children with education and the means to have a better upbringing around the world . “I just started and we have supported two projects so far,” he says. “The first one was in Uganda for building sanitary facilities in schools, so it would be easier for girls to go to school. And the second one works against child marriage. And lastly, we are collaborating with a team that is cycling from Norway to Paris raising awareness for child cancer.”

It seems like Witzøe has his hands pretty full. “Most people would do nothing,” he says. “I think that would be really boring, and I think most people would realise that after a while.”