Stellantis denies hiring Apple's Luca Maestri to solve its massive problems
Netherlands car firm Stellantis may be best known for buying Jeep, Dodge, Ram, and Chrysler, but it says it is definitely not buying ex-Apple CFO Luca Maestri.
Luca Maestri -- image credit: Apple
Stellantis cars waited until its shares rose before denying reports that it has hired ex-Apple CFO Luca Maestri as its new CEO. And that rise in shares is among the best news it's had in a while, as its car sales reportedly fell 14% in 2024 -- and its profits nearly halved.
In comparison, Maestri went out on a high as Apple's Chief Financial Officer in October 2024. He has been replaced there by Kevan Parekh, though reportedly Maestri has just moved down the hall at Apple Park and isn't going anywhere.
According to CNBC however, a spokesperson for the Netherlands car company Stellantis has denied that Maestri is taking over. "It is not true," said the spokesperson.
Okay. The spokesperson's report was backed up by an unspecified source who said hiring Maestri was "fake news."
Apparently the original claim came from local newspaper Corriere della Sera. It didn't exactly come from nowhere, but doesn't appear to have come from somewhere.
Instead, it follows the news that Stellantis last CEO, Carlos Tavares, resigned from the company after "different views" between him and the board. Those views probably concerned the steep drop in profits that CNBC says Stellantis suffered after its initially highly successful 2023 sales.
Reportedly, 2024 saw its huge downturn because Stellantis was not updating its cars or refreshing its lineups as much as competitors were. Rising costs also deterred customers, and quality control suffered too.
So it was perhaps not a surprise that the board and Tavares had a difference of opinion over whether he kept his job. Following his announced resignation, the local newspaper then reported that chairman John Elkann was planning to appoint Maestri, on the grounds of little more than "why not?"
Although Maestri was previously rumored, possibly with no greater reason, when Elkann was recruiting for a CEO for Ferrari around 2021. Ferrari went with a chipmaking veteran, so it isn't unknown for someone with a technology background to take over a car company.
And having Maestri rumored to take over did make shares in Stellantis rise in initial trading. So maybe Stellantis is now a more attractive option for Maestri.
Although according to Mopar Insiders, whatever that is, ex-CEO Tavares made around $26 million in 2023, including bonuses. Maestri, according to CFO, made $26.9 million.
Perhaps the Netherlands car company has a great relocation package.
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Comments
A wartime-like mobilization of battery manufacturing and development is needed by all the incumbents to catch up.
Really wish Apple made an EV.
Yet another example of a CEO that doesn't know crap about their product. He's managing the stock price not the company. He wants the company to be a fashion house. He's ruining the brand and it's already catching up to him. As a member of the Ferrari community and long time, multi car owner, they no longer make cars that I'm interested in and that opinion is shared by many.
I'm getting pessimistic that the USA can get themselves to compete in the technoscience-economies that will be driving future markets. It basically involves training your workforce to be scientifically and technically competent. There will be designer medical treatments to treat people's conditions. Gene therapies, designer medications (compounds that don't exist in nature but are designed), democratization of those treatments, solar+battery for everything, designer crops, closed-cycle water and other materials. A lot of this stuff is incubated in USA colleges, companies and government institutions.
There's cultural compartmentalization going on that maintains the USA's techno-science competency. That can't go away. If people start going to college in China, Korea, Japan, et al, to learn how to do those things, it will basically mean the USA has fallen 20 years behind. That's really the easy sign. Students start going to non-USA universities over American ones. If that happens, it's a generational issue.
The cycle time for cars is about 4 to 5 times longer than smartphones, 10 to 20 years for a car now versus 3 to 6 years for a phone, and while we are seeing things move slower in the car world, it is looking pretty obvious that similar things are occurring in the market, that there will be many ICE brands that die, with only a few to survive into the 2050s while all the other car makers will be different by then.
Stellantis Group is dead man walking, right? Any doubters about this? Some could argue it never had a chance to begin with after it formed. Literally, a rumor of a retiring Apple CFO becoming its CEO increased its share price. A CFO! Not some genius founder. That really smells like desperation. Some sub-brands may survive as their native countries will keep them alive, but that's for a smaller pie, never to be international again. German auto makers will shrink. BMW, MB, VW, at least one of them will not make it. I think there will only be 1 or 2 Japanese makers that make it, but they can do things to prevent that. They have been stunningly irresponsive to changes, or made the wrong bets with hydrogen FC.
All this stems from the USA gov't putting 100% import tariffs on Chinese EVs. 100%! That really crystallized things for me.
That's batshit crazy and a sign that native USA auto manufacturing will not be able to compete internationally. If GM or Ford sells a car internationally, it is going to be a badge engineered Asian made vehicle (India, China, SE Asia, etc) and will not be a USA export. The tariffs reduce competitive pressure on American auto design, development and manufacturing, preventing them from doing the things needed to compete. Government subsidies for training, mining for materials, getting manufacturing of critical parts probably have to triple or quadruple from what is spent in the IRA, and getting rid of soft costs needs to be a priority, if not the top priority, so that prices can decline.
Europe has a variation of this with 20% to 50% import tariffs on Chinese EVs. How they get their native automakers to compete in future is going to be the subject with a lot of pain for them just like it is for the USA.
As for an EV's value, I can understand some EV models losing a lot their value fast, especially 2021 to 2023 model years or certain brands in the 2010s. EVs are still in early adopter stages and are still under rapid changes and development. Another 50% increase in battery energy and volumetric density is coming. 300 mile range EVs today will have lower relative value 3 to 5 years from now because EVs in 2029+ time frames will have 400 mile range, charge 2x faster, and have more features like V2G. A 2030 EV will be a whole lot better than a 2024 EV, and that will exert a lot of price pressure on certain used EV model values for some time to come.
My 2019 Tesla Model 3 LR is holding its value fine though. After 5 years, its value is about 40% of its sale price of 52k. A 2019 BMW 330i has about the same drop.
It's a technology race where the critical components and features of a car is still rapidly evolving, where there are big improvements to come. It similar to smartphones in that way. It won't be until like the 2040s where an EV is full fat mature, providing all the important features to buyers and they have reached the point of diminishing returns.
Axial Flux motors - Mercedes bought the UK company which owns all the essential patents on this.
Recycled Anodes - It turns out that recycled graphite is actually better than than new as a material an American university, I forget which one, owns the essential patents on the best way to take advantage of this.