In 1998, Chrysler turned into Daimler-Chrysler, which morphed into FCA, and now, for some reason, it’s called Stellantis. Whatever the name may be, the smallest member of Detroit’s Big Three is seemingly in permanent need of a savior. For Stellantis, the highs are stratospheric, but the lows are somewhere in the Challenger Deep.
Lee Iacocca fixed it. Sergio Marchionne fixed it. But even though he was a Ghosn protege himself, Carlos Tavares made things worse. Luckily for Stellantis, though, his successor is hiding in plain sight. Although, he does have a habit of hiding in other places, too.
In an audio equipment box reportedly too large to be x-rayed by airport security, Carlos Ghosn escaped Japan on the night of December 29th, 2019, having spent his Christmas confined to house arrest. International courts accused the once-deified leader of Nissan, Renault, and Mitsubishi of a slew of strictly financial crimes, some of which are still being litigated.
But Ghosn is an international automotive mastermind. He has not been formally convicted of any crime. He is innocent until proven guilty. He is the best man to fix Stellantis.
It’s easy to forget Ghosn’s relentless stream of successes in the shadow of his dramatic escape. He began his automotive career as an entry-level engineer at Michelin in 1978. By 1990, he was running its North American operations. Shortly after he became one of the leading executives at the newly privatized Renault and, following its merger with Nissan, became the latter automaker’s CEO in June of 2001.
But Ghosn is an international automotive mastermind. He has not been formally convicted of any crime. He is innocent until proven guilty. He is the best man to fix Stellantis.
He dragged Nissan back from the brink. In 1999, The Japanese automaker was nearly unprofitable with over $20 billion in debt. By 2002, the debt was gone. By 2003, Nissan had some of the best margins in the entire industry. By 2005, it had increased its global sales by more than one million units.
The Nissan Leaf debuted two whole years before the Tesla Model S. Ghosn saw the writing on the wall in terms of electrification as no other automotive executive did. In 2017, Nissan sold twice as many BEVs as Elon Musk’s California startup, and the “what-ifs” for Nissan’s electrification efforts if Ghosn remained in charge are positively tantalizing.
Soon after Ghosn departed Nissan, the company entered a death spiral. Barring 2023, sales have declined every single year since he resigned as CEO in 2017. Its 2023 gains were likewise modest and, needless to say, failed to prevent a desperate bid to merge with Honda. And this historic alliance between two long-standing independent Japanese automakers isn’t for strategic advantage; Nissan is struggling to survive.
Ghosn will likely never go back to a Japanese brand, but Stellantis seems like a great fit. The executive speaks English, French, and Portuguese fluently. During his tenure at Renault and Nissan, he was traveling around the globe to put out fires and chase opportunities, something Carlos Tavares struggled with, to say the least. He has extensive experience with the North American, European, and Asian markets, the latter of which is extremely relevant.
He’s not-so-arguably one of the most visionary and successful global automotive leaders of the last two decades. But those triumphs don’t mean that tapping him to lead Stellantis is an easy task.
A 2019 settlement with the SEC barred him from serving as the director of a public company for 10 years. He’s likewise still accused of financial crimes in other nations. At the very least, he would have to be pardoned by incoming President Trump—perhaps sympathetic as a convicted felon himself—and settle lawsuits in France and Japan. His pick would be one of the most audacious moves in the history of the automotive industry.
It would be a farfetched idea if we were not living through one of the car business’s most volatile eras. The automotive executive is the shot in the arm that Stellantis needs. Forget the baggage—even if he’s guilty of everything various governments and companies accuse him of, he owes them nothing but money.
Carlos Ghosn deserves another chance, and the opportunity is staring Stellantis right in the face.
