The ancient Greek tragedians would have made much of this character – or Shakespeare. Maybe no less a hand can do him justice. Macbeth, Oedipus, Ghosn. Few have risen higher, few fallen lower. That’s tragedy. Greatness is self-destructive.
Carlos Ghosn was a corporate wizard, a magician. One failing company after another he “turned around,” returned to profitability: Michelin, Renault, Nissan. He was wise like Oedipus, ambitious like Macbeth – and where is he now?
In Beirut, Lebanon, a fugitive. Everyone knows his story. Nissan, one of Japan’s big three automakers, had been given up for moribund when he took over as chief operating officer in 1999. It was 2 trillion yen in debt; its cars were not selling; “hopeless” was the general prognosis; who was fool enough to defy such odds? Ghosn. He was then Renault’s chief executive officer. Renault purchased a large stake in Nissan. Ghosn became Nissan’s chief operating officer. Give me a year, he said in effect. He would resign if he failed to make it profitable.
He was signing his death warrant, skeptics said. We who know how the story ends (if it has ended!) smile at the irony. Death indeed – the ultimate price of the immortality he won for himself. But back then his fall was far in the future. He had much higher to rise first. And rise he did – taking Nissan with him.
One satisfaction he can claim now in defeat, a kind of consolation prize: Nissan has fared badly since his ouster. Under post-Ghosn management it flounders on. Recent talks of a tie-up with rival Honda broke down over Honda’s condition that Nissan accept more or less subsidiary status. Some at least saw the merger – barring the advent of a Carlos the Second (but who can second a Carlos Ghosn?) – as a last hope. What now? That is what Shukan Post (Feb. 28 – March 7) seeks to know from Ghosn in a remote interview, Ghosn seated apparently at ease in his study at home in Beirut. At ease? At home? He’s currently appealing a Lebanese court order that he vacate the $19 million property, on which it says he’s trespassing. For the fallen great, there’s no end to falling.
“As sharp-tongued as ever,” is Shukan Post’s impression. He charges his successors with lacking vision, decision, clarity, judgment, insight. “All the work I and my team did there over 18 years is wasted,” he says bitterly – perhaps with a secret bitter satisfaction?
He’s optimistic in the long run. Inadequate managers come and go; better may come along. As for himself – a victim, he says (not unreasonably, say more than a few others), of Japan’s “corrupt” justice system – he anticipates ultimate vindication. “There is no problem that human beings can create that they cannot solve,” he tells Shukan Post. Nissan, he says, must not surrender to despair; nor will he. “There is light at the end of the tunnel.”
Also darkness in the midst of light. Few lights shone brighter than his. He had assumed an impossible task, defied impossible odds, steamrollered irresistible resistance, and prevailed. He was as ruthless as he felt his mission required him to be. He cut 21,000 jobs (14 percent of Nissan’s workforce) while paying himself an annual salary estimated to have peaked at close to a billion yen; he shut down five plants; he abolished traditional age-based promotion, trashed traditional lifetime employment. He made many enemies. The leader not prepared to do that is not suited for leadership, he would surely say. He was suited. He did it. He triumphed.
At the peak of his fame, at the height of his glory, it all came crashing down on him. Suddenly he was in handcuffs, off to jail. Arrested in November 2018 on charges of financial malfeasance, he was to spend 108 days behind bars, his applications for bail persistently denied, rearrested on charge after charge, held under conditions more than a few said mocked Japan’s claim to be a respecter of human rights. Bail granted at last, he was released, if the strict surveillance imposed permits one to speak of “release.”
The drama had scarcely begun. In December 2019 he vanished, resurfacing days later in Beirut – he’d been stuffed into a crate and carried onto a private jet by hired operatives who got him through customs – because, fantastic though it sounds, the crate was too big to x-ray.
“I have no regrets regarding my escape,” he tells Shukan Post. “The treatment I received at the hands of prosecutors was cruel, inhuman and unfair. I knew I was liable to be rearrested at any time. There was no alternative but to get out of the reach of Japan’s corrupt justice system.”
And if you were still in charge at Nissan? the magazine asks.
What would he do? He mentions a name that resonates way beyond its three syllables: "My friend Elon Musk.”
Musk’s astonishing career is well known – what entrepreneur’s better? Donald Trump’s, maybe. Musk is the world’s richest man, Trump the most powerful; Trump president of the United States, Musk his cost-cutter- and firer-in-chief. Whether Ghosn as Nissan’s Musk would be good for the company in the long run or not, this much at least is certain: there must be many Nissan employees breathing a sigh of relief that he is where he is and not where he might be otherwise.
Michael Hoffman is the author of “Arimasen.”
© Japan Today
20 Comments
Login to comment
kibousha
LOL, ketamine-charged dude to save Nissan, with the only strategy they know, "fire everyone, give bonuses to self."
Sure
semperfi
.
Exactly, kibousha.
Nissans problems stem back to with Ghosn's mismanagement, and the surreptitious systematic financial misconduct connected with him not only with Nissan but with Renault.
BigP
What does he need to vacate his home?
sakurasuki
@kibousha
Check again the fact, in 1999 that company face bankruptcy. Not firing everyone but some people need to be layoff.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jan-31-fi-3405-story.html
sakurasuki
@semperfire
Check again, when the years Ghosn being removed by the coup.
https://www.wardsauto.com/nissan/ghosn-details-1-1-billion-suit-over-nissan-coup-
Ghosn removed in November, 2018 and now it's 2025, it almost been 7 years, let's say that company troubled because Ghosn. That company should do really well after Ghosn is no longer in leadership. However that's no the case in fact that never happened, that company doing well when Ghosn ran that company. Stock price got the higher, only when he was in leadership.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/7201.T/
.
Car sales also slump after Ghosn left.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Nissan-crisis-3.0-Strategic-error-leads-to-sales-slump-in-U.S
Still blame that to Ghosn?
Meiyouwenti
What was self-destructive was Ghosn’s own decision to jump the ball and flee to Lebanon. If he thinks he was such a man of vision and insight, he should have fought in Japanese court to clear his name.
sakurasuki
@Meiyouwenti
He wasn't try to run justice, he tried to escape injustice.
https://weekly-economist.mainichi.jp/articles/20250204/se1/00m/020/066000d
https://theconversation.com/why-carlos-ghosns-allegation-of-an-unfair-japanese-justice-system-is-unjustified-130563
.
Just look Greg Kelly, after 7 years he still fighting injustice
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Tokyo-high-court-upholds-suspended-sentence-for-ex-Nissan-exec-Kelly
.
Just check Hakamata's case how long does it take for him to be proven not guilty, from 1966 to 2024.
That's 58 years
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/09/26/japan/crime-legal/hakamata-retrial-ruling/
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/10/09/japan/crime-legal/hostage-justice/
Sh1mon M4sada
Yeah, and the opinion of a fugitive is going to...count for nothing. He had a chance to develop the Leaf, instead let it wilt on the vines. IMHO, once a gaslighter, always will be gaslighter.
Noone1
Give him a month and watch what happens. Look at Tesla. Dumpsterfire.
zulander
... I take it you aren't familiar with Japanese court, where the truth doesnt really matter so much
Mocheake
The people who don't like Ghosn because he is not Japanese and because of the way he left will never give him credit for anything. However, look at Nissan right before he arrived and since he's been gone: a total mess with no clear path to being successful. It says a lot. Those at the top are probably still getting their fat checks and bonuses while the company founders for years on end. At least he produced good results and no matter your disdain, that fact is undeniable.
リッチ
He foreigner who saved a Japanese company and they set him up to take it back to Japanese management and now IE. No one wants them.
BeerDeliveryGuy
Ghosn sold Nissan’s integrity and innovation for a short term profit that wouldn’t have lasted.
There is a reason a 1998 GTR is priced higher than a 2007 model.
Cfields
Classic “Nissan has fared badly since his ouster.”
Note, Ghosn will not be coming back to save Nissan. Honda was an option, but they declined.
Elon Musk, why should he be interested in Nissan? Better to have Musk collaborate with Japan’s Space Exploration program. That’s really our future as a planet.
gsa
Not every battle needs to be fought. Ghosn did the right thing and get himself out of injustice system, not that he is innocent or not.
Because of interest as well as perhaps being located in Japan, some readers puts too much emphasis on Japan itself. It has close to no weight around the world. Most people don't care about Japan except few Japan obsessed folks who does not matter much in their own society for the same reason.
The only selling point for Japan in the west today is to have something to counter China. Otherwise it is a country to go play around a bit as a tourist and then forget.
nickybutt
Greed was his downfall. He is in a prison of his own making. Disgraced forever.
DanteKH
To be honest, Ghosn was always a diabolical person, however he did resurrect Nissan from bankruptcy.
The he was axed in the most callously way possible while being served a 3rd world country justice with zero chance for a fair trial. We get it, he was a bad person. But the way was treated by Nissan in cohorts with the extremely corrupt Japanese "Justice" system was only possible in complete failed countries such as NK, Russia or the instable African countries...
Sapira
Why was my comment deleted?
I'd quoted another user and said they were advocating for presumption of guilt rather than presumption of innocence. I don't see the issue.
WA4TKG
Get used to it Sapira
WA4TKG
Waiting for this to show up at The Hague, where I mentioned it would, if “Justice” is ever to be served…still waiting.