Europe is less hard-working, less ambitious, more regulated and more risk-averse than the US, according to the boss of Norway’s giant oil fund, with the gap between the two continents only getting wider.

Nicolai Tangen, chief executive of the $1.6tn fund, told the Financial Times it was “worrisome” that American companies were outpacing their European rivals on innovation and technology, leading to vast outperformance of US shares in the past decade.

“There’s a mindset issue in terms of acceptance of mistakes and risks. You go bust in America, you get another chance. In Europe, you’re dead,” he said, adding that there was also a difference in “the general level of ambition. We are not very ambitious. I should be careful about talking about work-life balance, but the Americans just work harder.”