GM CEO stepping down

[Anti_Rice_Guy]

http://jalopnik.com/5611214/gm-ceo-ed-whitacre-stepping-down-sept-1

General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre will step down Sept. 1, with GM (http://jalopnik.com/tag/gm/) board member Dan Akerson becoming the fourth GM (http://jalopnik.com/tag/gm/) chief in two years. Whitacre, 68, will stay on as chairman until the end of the year.

Akerson, a top executive at buyout firm The Carlyle Group, built a career in telecommunications, as CEO of Nextel and XO Communications. He was one of the GM (http://jalopnik.com/tag/gm/) board members appointed by the U.S. Treasury to watch over its 61% stake in GM (http://jalopnik.com/tag/gm/), a stake its expected to begin selling off when GM begins selling its shares publicly later this year. Whitacre said he had always considered his tenure at GM as limited to getting the company launched out of bankruptcy.
"The board has been aware of this since the day I became CEO," he said. "It was my public duty to help return this company to greatness, and that I didn't want to stay a day beyond that, really."
Akerson will also take the title of chairman from Whitacre on Dec. 31.

[Jersey Mike]

"The board has been aware of this since the day I became CEO," he said. "It was my public duty to help return this company to greatness, and that I didn't want to stay a day beyond that, really." I guess...

[NastyEllEssWon]

why does that read to me as


''now that i forsee gm tanking again im going to leave when the goings good so i dont get blamed for them tanking''


:nod:

[Frosty]

why does that read to me as


''now that i forsee gm tanking again im going to leave when the goings good so i dont get blamed for them tanking''


:nod:

I get the same feeling but I hope I'm wrong. I still doubt GM as a company, I still get agitated regarding the way they ****ed over suppliers and creditors. I still get agitated that the books are cooked.

But eh, they help pay my bills so I'll get it while the gettin' is good lol

[LTb1ow]

One less person left to kill Al... ;)

[91chevywt]

I wouldn't want to run GM either

[BigAls87Z28]

Yeah, GM is going right down the ****ter. 1.3 billion dollars is a fluke. I guess its just another money shell game. Its gotta be, GM cant possibly be making money?
Its not like they made ground breaking negotiations with the UAW 3 years ago?
Its not like they cut thier debt load to a fraction of what it was 2 years ago
Its not liek they are selling more cars, with less brands, with less dealers, with less overhead?
Nope...gotta be a shell game.

Sad to see Ed go, but I wish he did more to break down some of the internal walls inside GM. Im not 100% on this new guy. Sounds like an executive money maker first. Could be good, but I dont think he will understand the business.

[Frosty]

Al, no offense man but they've already been caught lying about paying back the loans "5yrs early" so I'm not exactly jumping on the GM is back bandwagon. If this profit is legit, awesome. I just hope it's not another shell game.

I will give GM credit for one thing though, it's been rumored our lovely administration has been pressuring GM to go public early to help the election efforts(which is ****ing SHADY) and GM so far has refused...so kudos to them.

[LTb1ow]

Yea Al, if the general consensus of a car enthusiast board is that GM is ehhh and kinda sketchy with its whole " We are making profit w00t for us!!" matra... just think about how the general public views GM...

[BigAls87Z28]

This site is a small sample of what the world knows. GM did pay back or give back part of the money they were given so its really symantics not a lie.

[Frosty]

Then why did they pull the commercials after a few days? Why did Whitaker then say they need to pay off these loans so they can drop the stigma? So if 3 months ago they paid back the loans why did he just say yesterday that they need to pay back the loans?

It's a shell game and was a play on words...and they got snagged. Like I said, I hope this is real profit and not just a shell game.

[BigAls87Z28]

Its profit. They are ready to launch an IPO soon. I think that the people at banks like JP Morgan would not miss that whole section.
There was never a shell game just what you watch on Fox. The ads were not pulled GM just has a habbit of pulling a commercial within a week or two o talking about it. Why go on for a month?

[Frosty]

I haven't seen a single tidbit about it on FoxNews...so nice try. I haven't watched FNC all week...so again nice try ;)

Al, the SEC or FTC(I forget which) came out and said GM didn't pay back the loans and mysteriously the commercial was never seen again...coincidence? Political games? Are the evil Conservatives at it again?

You know, it's great that they're making $$$ but it'd piss me off if I was one of the creditors or suppliers that were ****ed over when GM was rushed through bankruptcy court.

[BonzoHansen]

it was not a lie it was semantics and an uber-bad pr move to announce it like they did. technically they did pay off loans. just not the pile of money that is equity backed. equity <> loan

typical thread. gm haters so sinking ship, gm supports say this guy was always supposed to be temporary. BFD, carry on.

[sweetbmxrider]

congrats on the new yob bigals!

[Frosty]

I'm not a GM hater...I just hate their business practices. I hope they do great...I hope Buick takes off like it should here in the states with the new Regal and redesigned LaCrosse.

With that said I'm also not gonna be a GM knob-gobbler because I service their products.

Maybe I'm wrong about them but I don't trust them as far as I could throw them right now...I hope I'm proved wrong for my careers sake and because I do like their products.

[Squirrel]

in after al

[NastyEllEssWon]

not a gm hater either, i just dont like my money being forced out of my pocket to save a company that shot itself in the foot and has continued to do the same since.



they shouldve let gm tank and dismantle the rest. the camaro isnt saving anything and gm fanbois are only fooling themselves. especially with the ''we paid back loans'' and the ''we have more sales'' when in actuality they just consolidated their sales and are a smidgen up over top where they were a year or two ago.


shady business is shady

[BigAls87Z28]

Letting GM tank would have tanked all of American production of the automobile. The problem with letting the one of the world's largest automakers die is lots of people end up footing the bill.
Imagine the few million people out of a job, taking in welfare? Imagine the creditors and suppliers getting ****ed when GM just isnt there at all?
Think that everyone else could pick up the slack? Way wrong. Realize that GM has more factories in one state then Toyota has in all of the US?
Ford would have been in a real heavy bind, with suppliers falling off left and right. Huge drops in quality, huge drops in parts would put assembely lines at a standstill, putting Ford UAW workers out of a job.
Chrysler, well...they also wouldnt have gotten anything, so Fiat would have just purchased them at a much lower rate.
Could some of GM's brands be picked up? Sure, but this was a world-wide disaster, with everyone shedding weight and dropping waste. Only companies that could touch GM brands would be VW or the Chinese.
This country, overnight, would have zero major manufacturing.
But yeah, you're right...wouldnt have been a big deal. Should have let GM fail. It was obviously a bad idea.

If you are upset about the government taking money out of your pocket to pay for things you didnt want, you should have said something years ago.

[LTb1ow]

Letting GM tank would have tanked all of American production of the automobile. The problem with letting the one of the world's largest automakers die is lots of people end up footing the bill.
Imagine the few million people out of a job, taking in welfare? Imagine the creditors and suppliers getting ****ed when GM just isnt there at all?
Think that everyone else could pick up the slack? Way wrong. Realize that GM has more factories in one state then Toyota has in all of the US?
Ford would have been in a real heavy bind, with suppliers falling off left and right. Huge drops in quality, huge drops in parts would put assembely lines at a standstill, putting Ford UAW workers out of a job.
Chrysler, well...they also wouldnt have gotten anything, so Fiat would have just purchased them at a much lower rate.
Could some of GM's brands be picked up? Sure, but this was a world-wide disaster, with everyone shedding weight and dropping waste. Only companies that could touch GM brands would be VW or the Chinese.
This country, overnight, would have zero major manufacturing.
But yeah, you're right...wouldnt have been a big deal. Should have let GM fail. It was obviously a bad idea.

If you are upset about the government taking money out of your pocket to pay for things you didnt want, you should have said something years ago.

You mean the bail out mess that the american public had shoved down their throats?

[NastyEllEssWon]

exactly matt. either way we were gonna foot the bill, but again a business is ''too big'' to fail. :nod:

[transmaro93]

If you are upset about the government taking money out of your pocket to pay for things you didnt want, you should have said something years ago.


I agree with you there, but people are saying it now and its not being heard.

[NastyEllEssWon]

I agree with you there, but people are saying it now and its not being heard.




i was against the bailout then as well

[transmaro93]

^^ ill be honest that i really didn't understand the repercussions of the first one and tarp, but now i consider myself much more well informed and in tune with things going on around me. Maybe too late, but better late than never. I see some people that have no idea about whats going on and they can care less its like great! I hope you enjoy paying 50% of your wages to taxes some day.... if not more.

[BigAls87Z28]

You mean the bail out mess that the american public had shoved down their throats?

So here are the two things that could have happend..

1) help GM get back on thier feet with the capital they needed so that they could make cars and keep people employeed, keeping supplier's doors open, and thousands of jobs safe

or

2) let GM fail, the domino effect hit the industry, and have millions of people added to the unemployment lines, eating up unemployment funds, SS, etc etc etc?


You, Nasty, and most of you here on this site, would have went with Option 2.

Either way, tax money was going to pay for this.

I dont remember my taxes going up, or seeing a surcharge on my W2 saying "GM Bailout Fund".

[sweetbmxrider]

yeah and the amount of money used is seriously a drop of water in the ****ing ocean. you act like if the bail out never happened we would all be swimming in caviar and toweling off with baby seals. jackass.

[Frosty]

Al is right in a way, if GM collapsed it would have been a worldwide disaster.

I will go on the record and say this....while I didn't and still don't agree with the bailout if it legitimately gets GM back then I will eat crow.

I'm still not sold, there is still a shell game going on, too many play on words, too much distrust for me.

[BigAls87Z28]

Well, understandable. I have faith, and I believe that what happend was soemthing that needed to be done. Adam is right, while 50 billion is a massive amount of money, its not even a 1/10th of TARP.

Some people dont and still dont like it. I hope for the sake of GM and the sake of this country, that what was done helps rebuild and strengthens it.