Praised in 2023 after exceptional results – on which his stratospheric salary was indexed – Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, was unable to repeat the feat this year. Here he arrived, unanimously by his board of directors, on a Sunday evening, with immediate effect. If the stock price of the multi-brand manufacturer (Peugeot, Fiat, Chrysler, etc.) had already been at half mast for months, against a backdrop of commercial difficulties in North America, its main market, the announcement of this dismissal caused the stock to plunge by more than 7% from the following Monday. With the interim provided by John Elkann, heir to the Agnelli family and representative of Exor, the group’s largest shareholder, expected to last several months, the financial markets took little notice of the sudden debunking of their former idol. A stock market sanction, which does not suit… the French State.
Stellantis’ third shareholder, Bpifrance, the public investment bank, holds 6.1% of the capital. A participation inherited from the rescue of PSA Peugeot Citroën by the public authorities in 2013, which no longer has any meaning today. From the top of this folding seat, the State does not have the means to influence the strategy of the Franco-Italian-American conglomerate, governed by Dutch law and headquartered in Amsterdam. “When Bruno Le Maire asked that the electric 208, which was massively subsidized, be manufactured in France, Carlos Tavares did not react,” recalls Bernard Jullien, lecturer at the University of Bordeaux. The humiliation has ended. Until the next boss?