Grok Ventures claims a disagreement between its founder, Mike Cannon-Brookes, and fellow billionaire Andrew Forrest about whether to send power from the $35 billion Sun Cable project to Singapore or use all the clean energy in the Northern Territory was at the heart of its plunge into voluntary administration this week.

All shareholders except Forrest’s Squadron Energy wanted to prioritise the original plan to send power to Singapore via a 4200-kilometre undersea cable, a spokesman for Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures said.

While the company missing recent milestones in its funding agreements may have been the official trigger for entering voluntary administration this week, different views on strategy appear to be at the heart of the problem. The Grok spokesman said providing power to the island state was the company’s marquee project.

“This was the reason the founders started the company, and the reason investors invested in the company, in the first place,” he said.

The spokesman said the cable project was on track to deliver affordable clean energy to Singapore.

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“This lighthouse project will likely deliver significant outcomes for the company, attract further investor capital and create a new industry in Australia,” he said.

“Grok’s investment philosophy is to back founders to build real value for investors and to assist the world’s energy transition.”

A source close to Grok said Forrest thought the cable was too risky and had his eye on using the power for a green hydrogen project under consideration by Fortescue Future Industries, the green energy arm of Forrest’s miner Fortescue Metals Group.