Car History Legends: the Rise and Fall of Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn
Carlos Ghosn is the disgraced former CEO of Nissan. What led to his downfall?
Written by Andrew Koole
Reviewed by Kathleen Flear
The inner workings of auto industry board rooms are usually a dull affair. Crunching numbers, answering to shareholders, and deciding how to make the next car look just like the competing model without looking too much like the competing model aren’t exactly riveting to watch.
But oh, what we’d give to have been a fly on the wall in Nissan’s headquarters in 2018 and 2019. The drama that played out between the Japanese automaker and its CEO at the time, Carlos Ghosn, is one of the most scandalous stories in
car history
. The Nissan of the ‘90s needed a Carlos Gohn
The decade of the ‘90s looked like Nissan’s golden era. The company produced six sports cars within those 10 years, a wild number for a brand known more as an economy car builder than a speed addict.
But that focus on performance cost Nissan a lot of money. So much so that it kept the company from making a profit through most of the decade. They ended 1999 with $20 billion of debt.
That same year, Nissan joined an alliance with Mitsubishi and Renault, thanks in part to the wheeling and dealing of then vice president of Renault, Carlos Ghosn.
As part of the deal, Ghosn became the chief operating officer (COO) of Nissan. Within two years, he was the brand’s CEO.
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Carlos Gohn’s recipe for success at Nissan: cuts, cuts, cuts
From the get-go, Ghosn’s goals for Nissan were directed at profitability. When he took the top job, he vowed to turn the company around in a year, saying he would resign if he failed.
He didn’t. But it took more than a few sacrifices to get the job done. In all, 21,000 jobs, five manufacturing plants, and the company’s traditional kieretsu business model were left on the cutting room floor.
Ghosn’s succes and controversy with Nissan reaches its peak
Ghosn’s decisions made a lot of people unhappy. And in terms of Nissan’s cars, the use of plastic parts and continuously variable transmissions (CVTs) lost the brand many of its avid fans. But it also turned Nissan into one of the most profitable car companies in the world.
That success followed him through the 2000s and most of the 2010s. But apparently, so did the disdain he’d accumulated from Nissan’s other boardmembers.
In November 2018, he was arrested for defrauding the company a total of $80 million, an accusation he claimed was nothing more than plot by Nissan executives to oust him.
Through legal maneuvers of the Japanese authorities, Ghosn didn’t manage to post his $9 million bail until March 2019. He did all he could to regain control of Nissan, but when it became clear that all his routes were blocked, he planned his most audacious move yet.
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An infamous escape
The conditions of Carlos Ghosn’s bail were strict. It included a travel ban outside of Japan, 24-hour surveillance, no internet access, and no contact with his wife. Without a way back to the top of the Nissan foodchain, Ghosn wasn’t about to continue living in the box his enemies put him in.
On December 29, 2019, Ghosn had two Americans smuggle him out of Japan. Michael and Peter Taylor successfully sneaked Ghosn through airport security in an audio equipment box and loaded him onto a private jet set for Istanbul, Turkey.
From Istanbul, Ghosn flew to Beirut, Lebanon, his place of birth and a country with no extradition agreement with Japan. He lives there with his family as a fugitive to this day.
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