Carlos Tavares Resigns as Stellantis CEO Amid Falling Sales
Carlos Tavares has resigned as CEO of Stellantis, the fourth-largest carmaker in the world. He planned to continue running the company, which he helped create by merging PSA Peugeot-Citroën and FCA Automobiles, through the end of his contract in 2026, but a disagreement with the board seemingly led him to quit.
“Stellantis’ success since its creation has been rooted in a perfect alignment between the reference shareholders, the board, and the CEO. However, in recent weeks, different views have emerged which have resulted in the board and the CEO coming to today’s decision,” explained Henri de Castries, the company’s senior independent director, in a statement. No further details were provided by Stellantis.
Predictably, leaks cast some light on what happened inside the boardroom. “There was a sense that Carlos was moving too fast to retrieve his reputation at the risk of creating problems in the future,” an anonymous insider reportedly familiar with the ex-CEO’s decision told The Financial Times.
Losing its CEO is the latest in a series of setbacks that Stellantis has faced in 2024. It has gone to great lengths to cut costs, including implementing layoffs all over the world, closing a Vauxhall plant in England, and even selling its 4000-acre proving grounds in Arizona. Slashing operating costs is one way to offset sliding sales, which dropped by 20 percent in the third quarter of 2024 versus the same period in 2023. Stellantis notably issued a profit warning in September 2024, and as of publication its shares are down by about 40 percent this year.
There’s no word on what’s next for Tavares, who turned 66 earlier in 2024. As for Stellantis, a new Interim Executive Committee chaired by John Elkann will run the group until it appoints a new CEO. Don’t look for a job offer on LinkedIn: the board of directors appointed a special committee to find a replacement for Tavares. No names have been floated yet, and Stellantis will announce its new CEO by the middle of 2025.
“Our thanks go to Carlos for his years of dedicated service and the role he has played in the creation of Stellantis, in addition to the previous turnarounds of PSA and Opel, setting us on the path to becoming a global leader in our industry,” said Stellantis chairman John Elkann.
Tavares, a life-long car enthusiast who competes in the Historic Monte-Carlo Rally, joined PSA from Renault, where he worked closely with Carlos Ghosn. He left Renault in 2013, became the CEO of PSA a year later, and played a significant role in creating Stellantis, which he has run since its inception in 2021.
I believe Sergio Marchionne was correct stating that more mergers were necessary to distribute the capital developing vehicles. Governments around the world have crippled automakers to divert spending into electric vehicles that will have effects long into this decade.
Sergio said that and I believe was correct. He was also running a cash-poor merger of weak players and needed another dance partner –so perhaps biased a tad.
Companies probably need to figure out how to be global and only be 3-5 giants. I think this means running brands in locales where they sell, a bit of badge-engineering if one compares markets, and razor-focus on sales niches without blurry overlap or competing with self.
From North Amercian perspective you have the big truck brands: Ford, GM, Ram, Toyota and I suppose Nissan. It would be bizarre for GM to sell off one of the twins (but who knows). Maybe VW is taking Scout into full size pickup-not sure.
Then you have the big SUV/lifestyle sellers. Everybody has something… but anybody but Ford would likely profit from taking over Jeep (Ford Bronco line, Explorer and Ranger/Maverick cover all the high points of Jeep lineup and sell well already).
Cars you have huge gaps and Toyota, VW, Honda and like owning whole segments.
Ford + Honda, GM + Hyundai/Kia, Geely + Stellantis, Toyota I’m not sure is missing segments really now that they are making some performance models again, Subaru + Nissan or whatever remixes end up being.
Some will of course want Ford + GM + former Chrysler assets but that road kills most of the brands (Geely-Dodge probably makes some cool Chargers –Ford would just do Mustangs). It will be interesting to see which governments interfere (why Hyundai & Kia are together for example) –such as do all the Japanese companies become Toyota?