The former CEO of Stellantis swears that he was not dismissed, says that many things could have been done differently

Was it not or was he? The old CEO of Stellantis, Carlos TavaresAn unsurprisingly of events for the initiates of the industry but shocking in terms of disorganization of the exterior decision. President John Elkann had to take over, without a replacement candidate aligned, so even if he seemed that Tavares had been dismissed, maybe he … left?

In his first interview since the dismissal contested, Tavares told Bloomberg that he was not licensed And that he left Stellantis because he and Elkann agreed not to agree on the strategic orientation of the company. More about it in a minute. But first, appreciate the heights to which a guy started at Renault in 1981 as a test driving engineer can climb in the automotive sector. Tavares offered its version of the events of the bucolic environment of its farm in Portugal. Licensed or not, he left Stelllantis with $ 40 million.

Tavares was a protégé by Carlos Ghosn, but when the two clashed on the premature plans of Tavares to succeed Ghosn at the head of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, the number two frame left the PSA group in 2014.

Stellantis recently appointed Antonio Filosa as his new CEOA complete decision of initiates because Filosa is not a well -known framework. Its elevation is a concession to American dealers in Stellantis, who revolt for having been forced to absorb excessive supply in Jeep and Aries. It seems that Elkann calls the shots, and what really happened is that he and Tavares negotiated the departure of Tavares, especially at the request of Henri de Castries, who was quoted in the press release that Stelllantis published When Tavares “resigned”.

“(I) n in the last weeks, different opinions have emerged, which has led to the board of directors and the CEO of today’s decision,” said Castries, oozing Gallic Passive-Agressive diplomacy.

So the French part of Stellantis totally Tavares and the Italian side now direct the company (John Elkann is the grandson of Gianni Agnelli, who made Fiat a symbol of the Italian post-war renewal). Tavares is semi-retired and cheerfully makes the port in his home while Sellantis remains the hot mess he has since Merger of PSA and FCA in 2021. Tavares was certainly the only guy who remains in the industry to have the chops to even consider tackling such an impious link. He had done it in PSA, in particular acquire Opel from GM in 2017 And turn around the length of the general European basket of the general.

At the time, GM caught a little Flak for letting Opel leave, but a director of GM told me that it was a stupid catch. He said it was actually a lot because GM unloaded a loser of solid money and obtained $ 2.2 billion while Opel became the profitable car manufacturer he was never when GM possessed. Tavares was on a roll.

Tavares told Bloomberg that things could have been done differently while taking a few scans on the board of directors of Stellantis and its American dealers. But the idea of ​​Stellantis was an insult to the inheritance of Sergio Marchionne, the architect of the FCA whose entire mission in life was to bring the agnellis out of the automotive sector. Marchionne died unexpectedly in 2018But he had managed to raise the ashes of his 2009 bankruptcy of his bankruptcy and to the merger with the FCA, then at the staging of a successful IPO of the new company in 2014 and an extremely profitable spin-off of Ferrari in 2015.

John Elkann presides over, a European financial colossus of $ 21 billion It absolutely does not need stellantis around his neck. An analyst with whom I spoke when Marchionne was alive and active said that you should remember that Sergio was a banker and that his goal with the FCA was Separate the active ingredients, Maxing out each value of value by TOT TOKER for the Elkann-Agnelli clan.

Stellantis was obviously the opposite of all this. And Tavares was not a Marchionne. He was, like Ghosn before him, the only guy who would like to join something as unruly as Stelllantis. But the company has always been a strangely named package of global rivalries and 14 incompatible brands, with cash cows which are not very practically located in the United States given the chaotic situation for world car manufacturers these days, Stelllantis could easily collapse in the coming years. And there is no one left to save him.