Stellantis announced on Sunday December 1, 2024 the resignation “with immediate effect” of Carlos Tavares, boss of the automobile group, whose successor will be appointed in the first half of 2025. Disagreements accelerated his departure. Reactions in Sochaux and Vesoul, two of the group’s French factories.
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His retirement had been announced by 2026. Finally, the board of directors of the Stellantis automobile group (which brings together the brands Peugeot, Citroën, Fiat, Chrysler, Opel, Lancia, Jeep…) will have taken the lead, putting end to the career of its leader. Carlos Tavares, 66, an intractable boss, was forced to resign, notably due to disagreements and plummeting sales. His resignation was recorded on Sunday evening and immediately communicated by the parent company.
It’s not a big event, we will continue to get up at 5 a.m. every morning to produce cars
Jérôme Boussard, CGT secretary at Stellantis Sochaux
Why an early departure? According to Henri de Castries, director of Stellantis, the planets were no longer aligned, with “different points of view” between the board of directors and the manager.
At the end of September, Carlos Tavares had to abandon his sacred objective of a double-digit operating margin for the year, which placed him far ahead of his competitors, and justified his planned salary of 36.5 million euros for the year 2023.
In our group, he went from Messiah to outcast. He says it himself: he is a performance psychopath
Jean-Paul Guy, CFTC delegate – Stellantis Vesoul
At the same time, he shook up the group’s organization at the beginning of October, choosing more commercial profiles to boost sales. Indeed, in the first half of 2024, the Stellantis group experienced a significant drop in profitability, with net profit halved. In North America, the automotive group’s margins collapsed in the face of more serious difficulties than expected.
Personally, he was the most hated boss of all, we experienced factory closures, job cuts, sanctions, layoffs, 150,000 job cuts around the world, and he was paid handsomely to do that. The question also: how much he will receive in the starting bonus. Nobody will regret it
Cédric Fisher, CGT delegate – Stellantis Vesoul
The year 2024 was also marked by delays in the launches of several models, caused in particular by electronic problems. Circumstances which had caused concern in Italy, homeland of Fiat, where thousands of demonstrators had demanded accountability from it in mid-October. At the same time, Carlos Tavares’ dizzying salary is causing reactions. For the year 2023, the CEO of Stellantis received compensation of 36.5 million euros. Or 3.04 million per month and 100,000 euros per day.
Coming from Renault, Carlos Tavares made a name for himself by turning around the PSA group (Peugeot-Citroën) from 2014, by cutting costs. He then succeeded, apparently, in the mega-merger between PSA and FCA (Fiat-Chrysler): since the creation of this group with fourteen brands in 2021, Stellantis has set net profit records.
But the last few years have been more gloomy, with a series of declines in production and sales. The Pure Tech engine scandal has particularly slowed down buyers. Last week, the group’s management assured that no factory closures were planned in the short term. But in the United Kingdom, the Vauxhall factory in Luton (north of London), employing more than 1,100 people, will be closed. In France, in Sochaux, the number of employees has been halved in ten years, going from 10,000 to 5,000 employees and according to the CGT, in a press release, Carlos Tavares “scheduled the closure of Douvrin, Luton and Poissy in casting doubt on others like that of Hordain and Valenciennes”.
We will remember him for the closure of Hérimoncourt in Doubs, the elimination of 5,000 jobs in 10 years, the abandonment of the Peugeot museum and the FCSM. He has a very negative social record while he receives 100,000 euros/day.
Jérôme Boussard, CGT general secretary – Stellantis Sochaux
Across the Atlantic, Carlos Tavares assured that the situation was in the process of recovery and that in Europe, he was not the only group to encounter difficulties in this “Darwinian” period but he had not completely convinced, nor the markets, nor employees.
Stellantis managers, for their part, assured that the slowdowns in 2024 were due to the “transition” between two generations of vehicles and promised a vigorous recovery at the start of 2025 with the rise of its new models. What will happen with the resignation of Carlos Tavares?
We, in France, are asked to maintain vehicle production. We hope that there will be no closures within three months
Jean-Paul Guy, CFTC delegate – Stellantis Vesoul
John Elkann, heir to the main shareholder of the group which is the Italian Agnelli family, takes the head of a new temporary executive committee, but without great ambition according to the Sochaux unions contacted by telephone “the Agnelli family, we do not expect anything from good of them” says Cédric Fisher, the CGT in Vesoul.
The process of appointing the group’s new general director is already “well underway” and “will be completed during the first half of 2025”, the group underlined.
We hope that they will maintain the commitments made in terms of jobs and factories. Change was needed and we hope that this change will improve the atmosphere
Bilal Benchaa, CFDT delegate – Stellantis Sochaux
In a press release, CGT of Sochaux explains that “this man is not to be pitied and no worker will regret Tavares who massacred employment and destroyed thousands of families”.
After the announcement of the resignation of Carlos Tavares, Stellantis shares fell by more than 7% on Monday, December 2, 2024, on the Paris Stock Exchange.