• by Tanya Gazdik , December 2, 2024

When Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares recently pointed an accusing finger at ineffective marketing as the reason for struggling sales by some of the automaker’s brands, an observer noted that the other four fingers were pointing back at the executive. 

So it should come as no surprise that Tavares has shown himself the door.

‘The departure follows a steep drop in Stellantis’ sales, with a glut of unsold vehicles on dealers’ lots, layoffs at several of its plants, calls for Tavares’ departure from the United Auto Workers union, which represents its US workers, and scathing criticism of his tenure from a council of the company’s US dealers,” according to CNN. 

Tavares and the board had increasingly “different views,” the company said Sunday. Shares in Stellantis fell more than 8% Monday.

“Mr. Tavares had announced this year that he planned to retire at the end of his current contract, in 2026,” according to The New York Times. “The company also said a search for a successor by a special board committee was ‘well underway.’ It added that a new executive committee, headed by John Elkann, the chairman of the Stellantis board, would run the company until a permanent replacement for Mr. Tavares was named.”

Elkann is a grandson of Gianni Agnelli, who founded Fiat. Elkann worked closely with Sergio Marchionne, who led Fiat’s 2009 takeover of Chrysler, which was going through a bankruptcy, according to The New York Times. Fiat Chrysler became profitable under Marchionne, who died unexpectedly in 2018. 

“The market will inevitably ask why the Stellantis board considered that not having a permanent CEO for some months was preferable to keeping the current CEO in situ,” Bernstein analyst Daniel Roeska said in an investor note Sunday night, according to CNBC. “We struggle to identify any scenario under which these events can be positively spun as far as the stock price is concerned.”

Tavares, 66, had led Stellantis since its creation through a 2021 merger between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Groupe, where he had been board chair since 2014.

“The longtime automotive veteran — a prodigy of former Nissan executive Carlos Ghosn — was widely heralded in recent years for spearheading the merger and making Stellantis one of the world’s most profitable automakers,” according to CNBC. “But this year, the company’s financial results have severely underperformed expectations amid mismanagement of the U.S. market — its prime cash generator — with a lack of investment in new or updated products, historically high prices and extreme cost-cutting measures.”

The company is one of the largest automakers in the world and produces vehicles under an array of brand names, including Chrysler, Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Fiat, Peugeot, Opel and Maserati.

“Tavares was a happy man last year when the company booked €18.6 billion ($19.5 billion) in profit,” according to WardsAuto. “But the story changed quickly in North America in 2024 when inventories of vehicles, especially Jeep and Ram, grew and profits came under fire in a hurry. The company’s attempt to sell U.S. consumers on its Italian brands – Fiat, Maserati and Alfa Romeo – has been a dismal failure.”

Maserati’s problems seemed from marketing, Tavares previously told Top Gear at the Paris Auto Show in October. 

“The Maserati brand is not clearly positioned and the storytelling is not how it should be,” Tavares said at the time. “The brand is not just about sports cars, it's about gran turismo, it's about quality of life, dolce vita and technology."

The brand recently hired an executive with a long history with the brand, Lucid’s Andreas Soriani, according to MediaPost. He and a new CMO are in the early stages of righting the ship.