More than twenty books have been written on Carlos Ghosn, and soon, another writer will go where nobody else has, in search of the secret behind Ghosn speaking very little about his father. The book published in French will discuss an aspect that Ghosn has scarcely discussed: his father’s involvement in a murder for which he was given a death sentence that was never carried out but instead was imprisoned for a long time. This story motivates the son’s remembrance of his grandfather, the poor Lebanese man who immigrated to Brazil and became a successful businessman instead of his father, whom he barely talks about.
This information does not change anything in terms of the accusations against Ghosn in Japan, but points at the centrality of his role and his excessive interest in his personality, chasing every little detail about his life. A car industry emperor whose success turned him into a phenomenon, just as the attempt to overthrow him, described in France as an ‘earthquake’. A planner, or a vulgar thinker, coming from different cultures with nationalities from three different continents. An immigrant who fluently speaks French, English, Portuguese and Arabic. His personal profile along with his way of work represents a rare living embodiment in Europe and Asia of an engineer of international businesses, capable of running several enormous companies at the same time, with unmatched success, generating billions of dollars in profit in a short period while supervising hundreds of thousands of employees without batting an eye.
In addition to weaving first class and extensive social and political relations all over the world. Many have met Carlos Ghosn or have seen him by chance, from presidents to regular citizens. The man is always moving, at a rate that is extraordinary for a man in his sixties, as energetic and vital as a man in his twenties. You could also add a list of friendships that are very hard to limit, and an uncompromising insistence on family life with his highest priority being to be a good father. Two reasons motivated him to leave Japan: knowing how unjust the legal system was and not being able to see his wife, which he considered a deliberate attempt to break his will, and a test in a position he could never accept.
He has many nicknames: Superstar, the Napoleon of Cars and the most famous Frenchman in Japan. His main problem is that he knows his worth and that he has always felt that the people he has worked with have been given him his worth in money. With all that he’s accomplished, he would always spark anger around him, with his decisions that would only rarely not be carried out. His influence expanded in the years after he conjured an unprecedented model for the Nissan-Renault Alliance, while every side would accuse him of favoring the other. Ultimately, this is what motivated the Japanese authorities to investigate old violations, as a result of the date for the merger of the two companies drawing closer, a merger that Nissan considered would melt its identity. It was not possible to halt this project without overthrowing the mastermind.
This does not mean that Ghosn is innocent of everything that he has been accused of. Still, it also does not prove that he who has been elevated to the position of Buddha today can, in a glimpse, put him in solitary confinement, forcing the Lebanese embassy in Japan to buy him a bed to spend his night. It is exaggerated to think that he should wait for the court date in 2021 and be treated like a criminal until then. This is a recurrent and complicated type of case, contaminated with business wars and political calculations, in Japan inasmuch as in France.
What was considered a tax evasion over compensations that did not even reach Nissan CEO’s pocket yet and the luxurious houses that the company has bought for him to move between houses that were neither bought in secret nor in his name, for it to become controversial today. There was a certain silence over what Ghosn considered his right in return for the Superman-like efforts that brought brilliant results. He was comparable to the US and its businessmen, especially after General Motors offered him a position for 35 million dollars per year due to Obama’s desire, a 10 million dollar increase over what he was getting paid, and he refused because he “could not leave the ship without a captain”.
A life-changing decision that he regrets until today. Did Ghosn believe that it was his right to make up for some of what he has lost, for more costs? Did he make a mistake when he let himself mix between the personal and his work? There is a vast difference between Ghosn’s conception of his exceptional role and financial benefits, on the one hand, and the accounts of his employers in Japan.
He saw himself as the owner of the project and its captain, while France and Japan saw him as just an employee who has crossed his limits. He always lived as a citizen of the world, while his many affiliations became his curse, making him a stranger wherever he goes. A difficult test for a man that believed in untamed liberalism that has the right to close factories with ease of conscience, dismissing thousands of workers, to generate tens of billions in profit. That was encouraged in the last twenty years.
Ghosn was seen as a miracle-maker when spiking the numbers and digging out dead companies and bringing them back to life. Everybody celebrated the Nissan-Renault alliance as the number one in the car industry without seeing the human touch and the scars that it left on the lives of many. However, a new era is being born, a period of uprisings and yellow vests, and the screams of people in pain. Carlos Ghosn did not commit anything new for him to be persecuted for, but circumstances have changed, and what was glorified yesterday has now fallen out of favor. It is not easy to see one of the most prominent symbols of globalization in the 21st century escaping in a box after everybody abandoned him, not finding peace except in the land of his ancestors.
