Credits: Y. Leclercq / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Carlos Tavares: once a name that evoked the genius of industrial rationalization, but today it sounds like a seized engine. His abrupt resignation as Stellantis CEO on December 1, 2024, marks the end of an era—and the beginning of a delicious media autopsy. Let’s look back at a career marked by tight turns, strategic crashes, and social convention blow-offs. Buckle up, this is going to be bumpy.
A Breakneck Rise… But Not Without Damage
Born in Lisbon in 1958, Carlos Tavares is a seasoned pilot of turbocharged capitalism. After promising beginnings at Renault, he made a name for himself at PSA by playing cost surgeon: plant closures, deep staffing cuts, and drastic savings. In short, the man who saw layoffs as an optimization game quickly found a place in the pantheon of ruthless managers.
But at Stellantis, the model seized up. In 2024, as net profits fell 48%, unions were calling for his head with a fervor worthy of a Monza Grand Prix. Investors, meanwhile, had already shifted into the next gear: after putting their faith in his Excel spreadsheet for so long, they failed to see the dangerous turn in the electric transition coming.
66 Million Euros: the CEO’s Golden Speedster
66 million euros—a figure that grates louder than a badly tuned gearbox… That’s only Carlos Tavares’s annual pay in 2022. While laid-off workers cried at the locked gates, the captain of the ship was swimming in an ocean of cash. You could almost think he confused the steering wheel of a Fiat with that of a Ferrari—not everyone plays Monopoly under the same conditions.
In factory corridors, some call him a CEO who is “overpriced but not overrated.” A criticism echoed even in the halls of the European Parliament, where Tavares’s bonuses were denounced as an insult to wage fairness. At that price, you’d at least hope he installed a GPS to avoid the wall of financial crash.
The Electric Transition Breakdown: Dimmed Lights
Under his leadership, Stellantis was overtaken by Tesla and BYD on the highway of electric innovation. Where competitors are running at full speed, Stellantis struggles to get going, stuck between European regulations and a lack of strategic vision. The Peugeot and Fiat electric lineup looks more like a used-car lot than a pole position on the market.
And when Tavares says that “European standards are holding back innovation,” even lobbyists raise their eyebrows. You could forgive his skepticism if Stellantis hadn’t let its market share melt away like snow in the sun against more competitive—and available—Chinese models.
An Exit That Finally Has Consensus
When he announces his resignation “effective immediately” in early December, collective irony reaches its peak: “At last, a fast and efficient decision!” But film fans need not worry: this departure feels more like a dramatic series episode than a heroic final act. The board had already set the succession process in motion, tired of waiting for Carlos to right the ship.
Employees, for their part, are celebrating in their own way. In the hallways, jokes are flying: “With Tavares, even a 90-degree turn looked like a spinout.” Far from Paris, the stock market takes the hit: Stellantis shares lose 8%, proof that the man knew how to leave an impression, even on the way out.
A Paradoxical Figure of Industrial Capitalism
Carlos Tavares will go down in the record books as a fascinating and divisive CEO, capable of both the best and the worst. Behind the classic-car collector is an ultra-efficient but detached manager, whose choices often left a bitter aftertaste. Today, he enters legend—if not a museum of electric cars.
In short, Tavares loved speed. But the road to electric cars forgives neither distracted drivers nor overconfidence. In this race, he will remain the one who made the engines roar… before stalling at the worst possible moment.