The fall of Ghosn continues today as the board of Mitsubishi Motors just gave the former Renault/Nissan boss the boot, as the New York Times reports. Ghosn had been the chairman of Mitsubishi since October of 2016.
Nissan took a controlling stake in Mitsu back in ‘16, which is what got Ghosn his position there. To put that in a bit of context, Mitsubishi had just been caught over-estimating the fuel economy of its cars, something that Ghosn supposedly cleared up, as the BBC notes:
He was credited with helping to stabilise the company after it was rocked by a scandal in 2016 involving over-stating fuel efficiency of some Mitsubishi cars.
But Mitsubishi’s chief executive Osamu Masuko told reporters after a board meeting to decide Mr Ghosn’s fate: “We (have) had two years of the alliance and there were positive parts... and parts that needed to be revised a little from Mitsubishi Motors’ point of view,”
The New York Times pulled a different quote from Masuko, pointing out Mitsubishi worrying about reputation:
In a statement on Monday, Osamu Masuko, chief executive of Mitsubishi, said the board had removed Mr. Ghosn because “he lost the trust of Nissan and he cannot execute his duties as chairman and representative director any longer.”
Mr. Masuko added that if Mr. Ghosn remained as chairman, it could expose Mitsubishi to “reputation risk.”
All I know is that at no point during his tenure did Ghosn bring back the Galant VR-4 or the Pajero Evo. Though Mitsubishi didn’t do that before Ghosn, either. There may be no heroes here.