How a Global Car Company Stalled Out

Stellantis is a Frankenstein conglomerate of Jeep, Ram, Fiat, Maserati and other brands. Can it survive its own self-inflicted wounds—and a trade war?

By Gabrielle Coppola and Albertina Torsoli 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
How a global car company stalled out. Stilantis is a
Frankenstein conglomerate of Jeep, Ram, Fiat, Maserati and other brands.
Can it survive its own self inflicted wounds and a
trade war? By Gabriella Coppola and Albertina Torsoli read aloud
by Mark Leedworf. Early in the fourth quarter of this

(00:23):
year's Super Bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas
City Chiefs, one hundred million viewers found themselves being soothed
by Harrison Ford from a cozy mountain lodge mug in hand.
The actor riffed on life, heroes and freedom, namely the
freedom to choose a gas guzzler versus an electric vehicle,
both of which are sold by Jeep. Freedom is the

(00:46):
roar of one man's engine and the silence of another's,
Ford said in the two minute TV spot as footage
of World War II era jeeps flickered on screen, followed
by two modern day models flying into the desert. We
don't always agree on which way to go, but our
differences can be our strength. As Ford unplugged his hybrid

(01:07):
Wrangler and drove off into the mountains, he flashed the
two fingered Jeep wave to a fellow traveler gunning his
own plug in. The multimillion dollar ad was a pricey
way to remind Americans just how much they really do
love freedom in the form of a rugged vehicle. But
for Stilantis, the Dutch headquartered Franco American Italian car company

(01:27):
that owns Jeep along with Dodge, Ram Pougeot, Citron, Alfa, Romeo, Maserati,
and a hodgepodge of other makes, it was a bid
to help resurrect a storied brand whose sales had collapsed.
The commercial had been greenlit by John Elcan, the forty
nine year old billionaire chairman of Stilantis, who for the
time being was also the de facto chief executive officer,

(01:50):
having ousted the CEO, Carlos Taveras two months earlier. Elcan
had a massive cleanup job on his hands. Of the
many strategic blunders to air made during his four year
reign over what was once a ninety three billion dollar conglomerate,
perhaps his most egregious was the mismanagement of Jeep, Stalantis's
crown jewel. He jacked up prices and increased production of

(02:13):
Jeep's most expensive trims without adequately investing in new products,
which left gaping holes in an aging line up and
swelling inventory on dealer lots. The extent of the damage
became clear in July twenty twenty four, when Stillantes reported
that its net income had been cut almost in half.
By September, exasperated dealers sent an open letter to Tavares

(02:36):
accusing him of destroying the company's brands. Elcan is the
leader of the Annelli family, Italy's version of the Kennedy clan.
His great great grandfather, Giovanni Annelli, known as the Henry
Ford of Italy, founded FIAD in eighteen ninety nine. His grandfather,
the flamboyant Gianni Annielli, multiplied the family's riches while partying

(02:59):
with Acclinonassis and jumping out of helicopters for kicks. The lanky,
lower profile Elcan runs a family controlled holding company in
the Netherlands Xor, which had thirty eight billion euros about
forty five billion dollars in net assets at the end
of twenty twenty four, with the Annelli family stake valued
at about ten billion dollars. Not only is Elcan responsible

(03:23):
for managing the fortunes of one hundred or so relatives.
He's also trying to transform Italy's legacy companies into international
giants that can survive another century. That quest has become
more difficult as incumbent automaker's struggle to compete in the
age of electrification and the rise of China. Over the years, Elcan,

(03:43):
who counts Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman and LVMH's Bernard Arnault
in his network, has diversified away from the mass market
auto business, venturing into luxury, healthcare and technology. Doing so
helped him boost Exor's net asset value per share for
thirteen times since March two thousand and nine, when the
company was listed in Milan. He also became a smaller

(04:06):
shareholder in a bigger auto company, one supposedly big enough
to survive the industry's upheaval. His most valuable asset is
a controlling stake in a separate and much more profitable
car company, Ferrari, which represented almost half of Exor's entire
value last year, whilst Lantis accounted for just thirteen percent.

(04:27):
If Stillantis formed from the twenty twenty one merger of
Fiat Chrysler and France's PSA Group is Elkan's link to
the past. It's also his problem and a drag on
his portfolio. John Elkan longs to trade pistons for pixels.
Yet the road from Mirafiori to Silicon Valley is treacherous
and muddy, says Carlo Alberto Carnevali Maffe, a professor of

(04:51):
business strategy at Milan's Boconi University, referring to the site
of Fiat's headquarters. He's perhaps betting on sleek m and
A to redefine the empire, but the rust in Europe's
car industry demands more than a visionary's touch to shine.
With Tavaris out, Elcan and the board had begun scouring
the globe for a Unicorn CEO, someone who understood manufacturing

(05:14):
and auto retail, but who also had a clear vision
for a future increasingly defined by software and batteries instead
of internal combustion. A turnaround whiz who knew the US
market but could navigate the internal politics of the three
way culture war among the company's American, French and Italian fiefdoms,
not to mention a two hundred and forty eight thousand

(05:35):
person global workforce and restive unions. Someone who could manage
a newly assertive chairman and board filled with appointees, safeguarding
dynastic wealth and national interests. It's as much a turnaround
job as it is a sort of United Nations ambassadorship.
And that was just the internal assignment. Then there was

(05:56):
the global politics, which Elcan tried to stabilize. As the
CEO search got under way, he embarked on an international
apology tour, mending fences with Italy's right leaning Prime Minister
Georgia Maloney, who'd clashed with Tavares over job cuts brought
on by lackluster sales at the Italian brands Alfa, Romeo,
Fiat and Maserati. He assured President Emmanuel Macrone of stalantis

(06:21):
ongoing commitment to France, whose government indirectly owns a six
point seven percent stake via the state owned investment bank
BPI France, which has a seat on the board. But
Donald Trump was Elcan's biggest problem. The re elected President's
vow to scrap EV targets and bring manufacturing jobs back
to the US ran counter to tavares strategy for the conglomerate,

(06:44):
which was to remake Stalantis as a nationless manufacturer primed
for the EV transition, Elcan, like many of the corporate
chieftains hoping to get on Trump's good side, came to
Washington bearing gifts. There was a one million dollar donation
from Stilantis to Trump's inauguration fund, along with the promise
of more than five million dollars in new investment, including

(07:07):
a pledge to reopen an assembly plant in Illinois that
had been controversially shuttered during the Biden presidency. Trump accepted
the peace offering, then unleashed a barrage of tariff and
policy announcements, further destabilizing the auto industry by upending supply chains,
scrambling investment decisions, and leaving carmakers on the hook for

(07:28):
billions of dollars in new duties. On a February call
with investors reviewing Stalantis' annual results, Elcan dismissed a question
from an analyst who asked whether he would consider breaking
up the company given the uneven pace of global EV
adoption and rising geopolitical tensions. Toyota and other companies were
gaining share because of their global reach, not in spite

(07:50):
of it. Elcan said, I believe that in our case,
where we have regional scale and global scale. We're actually
very well equipped for the world to come. Elcan and
Tavares declined to speak to Bloomberg BusinessWeek for this article.
After trying to lure several external CEO candidates, the posts

(08:11):
sat open for almost six months until late May, when
Elkan and the board finally announced that they hadn't poached
an outsider to lead the company in its fight for survival,
but had promoted someone internally. Antonio Philosa, an Italian who'd
successfully run Stalantis's South American division and had been with
the company for twenty six years, would be the new CEO.

(08:34):
Philosa's profile had risen amid an exodus of senior management
under Tavares. Only seven months earlier, he'd been promoted to
run the North American operations, but in many ways, anointing
him as CEO was a tacit admission of what no
one was willing to say aloud. Outside talent wasn't exactly
clamoring for this job. At first, Elkan didn't appear to

(08:58):
be the one destined to shepherd his fan, Elmy's one
hundred and twenty six year old auto dynasty. The eldest
of three he was five when his parents divorced, and
he grew up looking after his younger siblings as his
mother shuttled them from New York to London, Paris and Brazil.
He eventually moved to Turin to study engineering. When Elcan's cousin,

(09:18):
the heir apparent, died of stomach cancer at the age
of thirty three, his grandfather turned to John, whom he'd
also been grooming by having him work under a pseudonym
at auto plants in Poland and the UK. He joined
the board at twenty one and took the helm of
the company six years later after the death of his
grandfather and great uncle. At the time Elcann took over,

(09:40):
Fiat Group was the largest private industrial employer in Italy
and it was on the verge of bankruptcy. To save it,
in two thousand and four, he hired Sergio Marcione, an
outside CEO he believed would set up Fiat for a
bright future. Marcione was a larger than life presence, a
rump old, chainsmoking workaholic. He carried six mobile phones to

(10:04):
simultaneously fire off orders orchestrate deals. Kibbets with Elkann and
charmed the press with his candid assessments of the car business.
He would become known on Wall Street as Il Maestro
for saving Fiat and eventually the US car company Chrysler.
The latter had long been the scrappy underdog of Detroit,
lurching through booms and busts and being passed along to

(10:26):
different owners seeking to profit from its American foothold. Lee
Iacocca had saved the company by securing a bailout from
Congress in nineteen seventy nine. Then he invented a new
hit segment, the Mini Van. When the two thousand and
eight financial crisis happened and Chrysler needed another government bailout,
Marcione and Elkan swooped in. Marcione breathed life into Fiat

(10:50):
Chrysler Automobiles, the company's new name after Fiat bought out
the remaining US stake in twenty fourteen by reinvigorating its
most prized brands, Jeep and Ram. In twenty sixteen, he
retooled his car plants to make SUVs and trucks, anticipating
Americans shift to crossovers and pickups. SUVs grew from thirty

(11:12):
eight percent of the US market in twenty sixteen to
sixty percent in twenty twenty four, while car sales plunge.
According to Cox Automotive, General Motors, and Ford would soon
follow the shift to more suv and truck production. During
his fourteen year reign, Marcione with Elcan, increased the value
of the car business by more than ten times by

(11:34):
merging Fiat with Chrysler and later spinning off Ferrari. Marcione
laid out his views on the auto industry in a
now famous manifesto, Confessions of a Capital Junkie, which he
presented as a twenty five page slide deck in the
spring of twenty fifteen. He argued that consolidation was the
only way for the industry to achieve long term viability.

(11:57):
Car manufacturers capital expenditures were steadily increasing to keep up
with technology electric motors and batteries, new software architecture, sensors
for advanced driver assistance features, but they weren't making a
healthy return on their investments. He argued they should instead
pool their efforts, sharing under the hood components the consumer

(12:18):
would never see or touch, and focusing their research and
development budgets on features that would truly differentiate the brands
one off joint ventures or collaborations didn't go far enough
to truly future proof the car industry. Iil Maestro argued
companies needed to merge, either with one another or with
an established tech giant to achieve the scale necessary to survive.

(12:43):
He acknowledged that such a merger would carry executional risks,
but it was ultimately a matter of leadership, style and capability,
namely his, though that part wasn't explicit. Marcione never got
the chance to prove his case. An attempt to merge
with GM was rebuffed, and in twenty eighteen he died

(13:03):
suddenly after undergoing surgery. Elcan, who'd been unaware of Marcione's
health problems, was shell shocked. He appointed one of his
top lieutenants, former JEEP CEO, Mike Manley, as CEO. The
mission became boosting profits to ready Fiat Chrysler for another merger,
this time with a company that had EV technology, something

(13:25):
Marcione had largely ignored, but the carmaker now desperately needed
PSA group run by Tavares wasn't Elcan's first choice, but
it had that EV tech, and Tavares was regarded as
a hero in France for reviving the company. In twenty
twenty one, Elcan and the French Pougeot family completed a
merger and created Stilantes, with Tavares as CEO and Elcan

(13:50):
as chairman. In Tavares, who was born in Portugal and
educated in France, the French government felt it had a
protector of its interests and Elcann had a leader who
could take Fiat Chrysler into the next century. The company's
center of gravity shifted to Paris. Elcan, who had a
close working relationship with Marcione, stepped back when Tavares took

(14:12):
over and the board got comfortable with the consistent profits
flowing in under Tavares. A Stilantis spokesperson says Elcan's role
at that time didn't require him to have dated day
company involvement. He had other parts of the family business
to attend to, including Ferrari, the Economist magazine, and bets
on healthcare and tech. He'd been serving as interim CEO

(14:35):
of Ferrari and made an inspired choice to lead the
supercar maker. Benedetto Vigna, an Italian physicist who pioneered the
use of three D motion sensors in the Nintendo Wii
and the iPhone. Elcan and Vigna regularly exchanged books on
tech and philosophy. He'd struck up a friendship with Elon
Musk after one of his companies assisted Tesla with the

(14:57):
ramp up of the Model three, and Elcan invited him
to join him for a fireside chat as part of
Italy's twenty twenty one Tech Week, where the two commiserated
about steering companies through crises. Elcan was also plowing hundreds
of millions into tech firms and mixing with Silicon Valley
powerbrokers as a fellow media magnate at the Allen and

(15:19):
Company Tech conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. Meanwhile, Tavarus went
ahead with his vision. Like Marcione, he said scale was
key to Stalantis's survival, but with the caveat that evs
were the company's future. He laid out a plan to
invest more than thirty billion euros to electrify Stilantis's model lines,

(15:40):
build battery factories across Europe and North America, and forged
tech partnerships to access more advanced chips and improve software
applications in cars. And he said all the right things
Stilantis's dozen plus brands would finally be given the resources
necessary to compete. The company's size would shield it from
the disruptive forces reshaping the industry while saving it billions.

(16:03):
He told investors in early twenty twenty one. He began
cutting jobs and he jacked up prices to take advantage
of pandemic induced supply shortages. The combination produced a high
octane earnings boost. The first year, Stilantis put up an
almost twelve percent margin that was the envy of Detroit.
The financial results were hard to argue with. One thing

(16:26):
Tavaris didn't have a good grasp of was the US market,
nor would he listen to American executives who did. When
interest rates rose, he refused to discount cars or make
more features standard on base models. Instead, he kept prices
high and cut deeper internally. Over four years, he dismissed
more than fifty thousand people, or almost seventeen percent of

(16:49):
the workforce. He replaced engineers in the US, France, and
Italy who for decades had been fine tuning cituin Fiat
and Jeep with lower paid alternates. In Brazil, India, Morocco,
he demanded that suppliers sell him parts virtually at cost,
then balked at requests for price increases to offset inflation,
triggering lawsuits and even factory shutdowns. As long as Stilantis

(17:13):
remained profitable, the board went along, even as Tavares was
hollowing out the essence of its most important brands. A
spokesperson says the board was not complacent and asked Elkan
to be more involved in June twenty twenty four as
problems emerged. By mid twenty twenty four, Tavares couldn't dismiss
the US problems anymore. With unsold cars piling up and

(17:36):
no strategy shift. Key executives were leaving that summer. Tavars
gathered investors at the company's US headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan,
and promised to deliver double digit margins. Yet again, he
offered Ameya Kulpa over the US business, allowing he'd been arrogant,
but he had a plan a slew of new EV models,

(17:58):
never mind that slow EV sales were already forcing Ford
and GM to cut production. The vehicle launches didn't go well.
Tavars had gutted factory crews and driven out a deep
bench of manufacturing leaders with decades of experience hampering both
EV and gas vehicle rollouts. Earlier that year, line workers

(18:18):
in Detroit had huddled on zoom calls with an engineer
in India to troubleshoot. In one instance, a cable needed
to hook up the electronics in the RAM pickup was
too short, but the schematic on the engineer's computer eight
thousand miles away showed a different length. It took months
to pinpoint what could have taken days in person, according
to one United Auto Workers leader who was part of

(18:40):
the group and asked not to be named commenting on
internal affairs. In the end, much of Tavars' product defensive
was delayed, some models by months, others by years. As
the hype around EV's died down, the delays worsened and
already deteriorating financial picture. Only when stillants were arted its
shocking profit shortfall in July twenty twenty four, tanking the

(19:04):
stock did the board realize the extent of the damage
in the US, according to people familiar with the situation
who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. After
accompanying Tavars on a trip to the US in August,
Elkan started looking for a successor, people familiar with the
process said. Meanwhile, Tavars persuaded the board to push out

(19:25):
his chief financial officer and continued to call for drastic
cost cuts, but even his French champions were losing faith.
Over the first weekend in December, Tavars was told that
his strategic goals no longer aligned with the boards, and
he was ousted. Tavares, who'd expected to serve until his
contract ran out in twenty twenty six, left without a fight,

(19:47):
taking with him a twenty seven million dollar payout. I
did my very best when I was there with my team,
he told Bloomberg News in May in an interview in Portugal,
where he's been investing in local companies and making port wane.
It is Vineyard. I was not alone, and with the board,
we'll be right back with how a global car company

(20:08):
stalled out. Welcome back to how a global car company
stalled out. Jeep was certainly not the only damaged brand,
but it had the most to lose. Its value is
almost mythical in the auto industry. Few vehicles are as
deeply embedded in the American psyche as a Wrangler cruising

(20:29):
around in summer without its roof or doors. Jeep owners
leave rubber ducks on one another's hoods as an act
of good karma, and post nude selfies in their vehicles
on Jeep subreddits. Even Bruce Springsteen once chilled for the brand,
and it didn't feel completely farcical. But the paradox of
Jeep is that it's an off road vehicle, and off

(20:51):
roading is niche. The more you try to expand it,
the further you risk straying from what makes it unique.
Many suitors have offered to take Jeep off chryslers since
Iacoca acquired it in nineteen eighty seven, and many an
executive has defiled it while trying to multiply its riches.
Marcione and his successor mostly pulled it off, but even

(21:11):
they stumbled trying to make it translate in China. The
company miscalculated again in twenty twenty one when it brought
Jeep into the luxury realm with the three row Wagoneer
and Grand Wagoneer, turning the rugged rock crawler into a
land yacht, topping out above one hundred thousand dollars. When
the move up market backfired, Jeep didn't have enough competitive

(21:33):
mainstream models to fall back on. Tavares had temporarily discontinued
the Jeep Cherokee, a mid sized suv priced just less
than forty thousand dollars, to transfer production from Illinois to
Mexico to save on labor costs. The Grand Cherokee and
entry level Compass were also badly in need of a refresh.
The whole Cherokee left in the heart of the suv

(21:55):
market was a gift to the competition. Jeep was losing
customers to more affordable brands such as Hyundai and the
boxy Wrangler rival the Ford Bronco. With Jeep's market share crumbling,
the brand's CEO left in the fall of twenty twenty three,
and Tavares recruited Filosa to take over. Filosa had started

(22:15):
at FIAT in nineteen ninety nine as a plant rat,
industry slang for a manufacturing executive who toils long enough
in the bowels of factories to appreciate the intricacies of
high volume manufacturing with speed and quality, going on to
successfully run fiat's Argentina business and eventually all of South America.
Now in Detroit, Filosa had one goal stopped the bleeding

(22:39):
at Jeep. He lowered prices, made more premium features available
at no additional cost, and idled plants so dealers could
sell off old inventory. But the problems he inherited had
no quick fixes. Price cuts in marketing could do only
so much. What the brand really needed was new products.
In twenty twenty four, sales fell for a sixth consecutive year,

(23:02):
and Jeep's share of the American suv market slipped to
less than half of its thirteen percent peak since two thousand,
according to Edmunds. Then, in early February, with Elkin still
looking to fill the CEO post, Trump announced a barrage
of tariffs, blowing up Stalantis's product plans. In the process,
he imposed a twenty five percent duty on imports from

(23:23):
Canada and Mexico bypassing Congress. Stalanta's executives in Detroit tried
to estimate the size of the tariff bills, along with
the cost of moving production and tweaking supply chains. They
fielded letters from suppliers asking for financial help. The uncertainty
scrambled the economics on imported vehicles. Hesitant to sell cars

(23:44):
whose cost he couldn't predict. Filosa, now running North America,
halted production at two plants in Canada and Mexico in
early April, temporarily laying off not only those workers, but
also hundreds of UAW members in Michigan and Indiana who
who made transmissions and stamped metal for plants across the border.
The much anticipated return of the Cherokee, now made in Mexico,

(24:08):
was waylaid because its supply chain had to be reworked
to minimize tariff costs. The less expensive Compass was about
to get a long awaited facelift at a plant in Canada,
but Felosa paused the newer model's US debut, creating panic
among Canadian government and labor leaders. Elcan shifted into diplomacy
mode to try to convince Trump that leaving the tariffs

(24:30):
in place would seriously weaken the very industry he wanted
to protect. He joined the CEOs of GM and FORD
on a call in March to plead with White House
officials for an exemption for cars that complied with labor
and other requirements in Trump's original trade packed, which some
key Stalanta's vehicles did. Weeks later, Elcan paid Trump another

(24:51):
visit at the White House, and in April he made
an appeal from the podium at Stalantis's annual shareholders meeting.
The American and European car industry are being put at risk.
He said that would be a tragedy, as car manufacturing
as a source of jobs, innovation, and strong communities. The
Trump administration did eventually make some concessions that helped American

(25:13):
car makers. The EU also agreed earlier this year to
ease pollution rules, sparing Stilantis from an estimated one billion
euro fine for exceeding emissions targets, but it was not
enough for it to avoid significant financial hits. In April,
Stillantis suspended its financial guidance for the year, citing tariff uncertainty,

(25:34):
and the CFO later said trade duties would cost the
automaker as much as one point five billion dollars this year,
roughly twenty seven percent of the twenty twenty four net profit.
It restored guidance in July, not that its factory workers
were buying those explanations of the company's struggles. Tariffs are
just an excuse, said Kevin Gotinski, the head of the

(25:56):
UAW Stalanta's division. At a rally outside Detroit. During that period,
Elkann had also been searching for Stillantis's new CEO, both
inside and outside the company. He'd sounded out Jose Munio's,
who in November was promoted to become Hyundai's first non
Korean chief. He considered Mark Royce, Mary Bara's number two

(26:17):
at g M, and former Fiat Chrysler CEO Manly, who'd
gone on to successfully lead the U S dealership chain Autoonation.
Elcan was also in contact with Luca Demeyo, a former
Fiat executive who'd executed an impressive turnaround of Renault, but
by then de Mayo was already lining up a new
job outside Autos as CEO of Caring, the French luxury

(26:40):
group that owns Gucci. A Stillantis spokesperson in an e
mail disputed this characterization, saying the board had a number
of strong candidates ready to take up the CEO role
at the end of the process, both external and internal.
In late May, Stillantis announced it was promoting Fellosa to
lead the company. The fifty two year old was a

(27:01):
loyal disciple of Marciones, who has the reputation of an
intelligent and humane corporate chameleon, able to easily alternate between
remembering line workers names and applying pressure on white collar
underlings to get results, As one former colleague in Brazil
described him, While Elcan had been scouring the globe for
an external leader, he had also put Velosa through a

(27:24):
CEO crash course, promoting him three times in the span
of eight months. Filosa was the board's top candidate because
of his proven track record of leadership and his people
first mindset, says a Stlantis spokesperson. While an internal hire
meant the new chief wouldn't need time to learn the
culture or diagnose what had gone wrong, it also reinforced

(27:46):
just how unattractive the role was to outsiders, staring down
the barrel of more losses, possible downsizing, and the tariff mess,
says an automotive industry analyst who asked not to be
identified discussing the company's hiring process. Fellos's appointment also signaled
the company's internal shift in power from France back to

(28:07):
Detroit and Elkin's home country of Italy, whose factories had
been gutted under Tavares. Days before Tavares was ousted. Filosa,
who speaks fluent Portuguese, as well as English and Italian.
Made a not so subtle jab at the soon to
be former regime. Speak whatever language you want, just not French,

(28:27):
he joked to a Bloomberg reporter last November. He declined
to comment for this article. In late July, Filosa had
his coming out, his first Stilantis earnings call as CEO.
The company had already front loaded the grim news earlier
a two point seven billion dollar loss in the first
half of the year, with the bulk of the tariff

(28:47):
pain still to come in the second half. Filosa introduced
himself as a leader who fixes problems and runs toward
tough decisions, but it quickly became apparent that he still
had fires to put out before he could offer any
grand blueprint to fix the company. Fellosa talked about reversing
plunging sales in the US and Europe with upcoming products,

(29:08):
but cautioned that a new plan wouldn't be ready until
early next year. Nothing works at Stalantis in the mid
term if they don't fix the US quickly, said Philippe hohouschois,
an analyst with Jeffreys in London. Elcan meanwhile, has been
more involved with Stillantis than he's been in years. He
helped woo back Tim Kuniskus, a thirty year company veteran

(29:30):
who left under Tavares, then rejoined a week after Tavares
was ousted. Known for reviving the Dodge muscle car brand
with souped up engines named Demon, Hellcat, and Red Eye,
Cuniscus is now overseeing US retail and marketing strategy in
the Trump era. If there's any American Bravado left in
Auburn Hills, he'll try to summon it. And he's getting

(29:52):
a lift from Trump, whose rollback of EV targets and
fuel economy rules will allow him to put popular engines
back in the lineup. He's already returned to the popular
Hemi engine to ram pickup models, and Stillantis has four
new and refreshed jeep SUVs arriving later this year, including
the crucial Cherokee. In July, Elcan gave a speech in Stuttgart, Germany,

(30:15):
in which he warned European policy makers not to underestimate
Chinese production and urged them to lighten regulations and bring
back clean car incentives to help Stalantis and its peers compete.
Then he helped poach one of Renault's top design executives
to head design for Stlantis's European brands, a coup after
the company had been drained of seasoned engineering and marketing talent.

(30:39):
But Elkan's most telling moves are happening outside the walls
of Stellantes. Days after Fellos's Wall Street debut, Exor agreed
to sell Ivoco Group, a trucking company with roots stretching
back to Elcan's great great grandfather, to India's Tata Motors
and an Italian defense company, for more than six billion dollars.

(30:59):
It was an another sign the scion is untethering himself
from manufacturing to free up cash to invest in high
growth industries such as tech, biotech, and luxury. At the
start of twenty twenty five, Elkan joined the board of
Meta Platforms, while Exor also invested in a data analytics
firm and increased its stake in the healthcare technology company Phillips.

(31:22):
There could be more deal making in the offing for Stillantes.
Earlier this year, Elcann hired Mackenzie to develop a strategy
for the struggling Alfa, Romeo and Maserati brands, which face
yet another headwind from Trump's tariffs. Felosa has sought to
tamp down speculation, telling Italian financial newspaper Il sole vintiquatro
Ore that Maserati is not for sale. The plan for Stillantes,

(31:46):
at least for now, seems to be to get the
company back in a financial position that gives Elcan a
better hand to play. A Stillants spokesperson says its chairman
has never walked away from problems and has been a
supportive owner through difficult times by giving management the resources
needed to adapt. But as much as Elcan prizes innovation,

(32:06):
he's an industrialist, much like his great great grandfather. His
primary duty now is to play the role of investor
and expand the family fortune, not fight a fading auto industry.
He will shrink parts of the exor empire to turn
to more lucrative things if he needs to, and he's
already started with Danielle Lepido, Enrique Almeda, Leonardo Lara, David Welch,

(32:30):
and Devon Pendleton