The writer, a Los Angeles freelancer and former Detroit News business reporter, writes a blog, Starkman Approved.
By Eric Starkman
Hey, GM and Ford employees, those of you fortunate enough so far to escape termination notices from your chief people officer folks Arden and Jennifer, I so feel for you.
I truly do!
CEOs Jim Farley and Mary Barra
I’m sure many of you noticed and were aghast as I was by media statements made by your companies’ PR spinsters about your revised bonus structures. In case you missed it, here they are:
"GM is proud to have a culture where we foster and reward HIGH PERFORMANCE (emphasis mine), collaboration and excellence, which will help us attract and retain top talent in a competitive industry environment,” GM spokesman Kevin Kelly told the Detroit Free Press last month.
Here's what an unidentified Ford spokesperson was quoted as saying in this Reuters article: "We are focused on driving a HIGH-PERFORMANCE CULTURE that recognizes and rewards employees for their business contributions."
It’s a wonder GM and Ford don’t merge their communications and PR departments and save on the cost of duplicate messaging. Moreover, GM’s and Ford’s newfound commitments for high-performance cultures are tacit admissions that until now, they were satisfied with mediocre performance cultures.
Little wonder Tesla is valued at more than $1 trillion and GM and Ford are respectively valued at $46 billion and $37 billion under the leaderships of GM CEO Mary Barra and Ford CEO Jim Farley.
What’s also clear is that Barra and Farley deserve to be fired under the criteria they demand from their employees.
DEI failures
Not all that long ago, U.S. corporations, including GM and Ford, were waxing on about their pious commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and how their DEI preferences would make them better and more profitable enterprises. Achieving DEI appears to be among the many failures of Barra and Farley.
Check out Barra’s management team, which looks awfully white male to me. Here’s a link to Ford’s leadership team, hardly a celebration of Blacks, Indigenous People, and Persons of Color.
But let’s not beat up Barra and Farley for their DEI failures because everyone knows they were just going with the progressive flow hoping to garner some positive media coverage, which they both badly crave. However, their failed performance records can’t be ignored, particularly given the obscene $28 million and $26.4 million compensations Barra and Farley respectively received in 2023.
Barra's and Farley's 2024 paydays haven't yet been made public.
Barra’s 2023 pay amounted to $76,712 a day, assuming she worked seven days a week. GM’s poverty-paid workers in Mexico would have to work years to earn that kind of money. Under Señora Barra’s leadership, GM became Mexico’s No. 1 vehicle manufacturer.
Given the moolah Barra and Farley pocketed for themselves, investors should expect flawless, jaw dropping execution. The two automotive executives have undeniably failed to meet their previously stated goals and objectives.
Barra’s EV Braggadocio
Those with reasonable memories recall Barra going on CNBC in October 2021 saying that GM “absolutely” could catch Tesla in EV sales by 2025. GM sold 114,432 EVs in 2024. Tesla sold 1.8 million EVs, including 733,762 in the U.S.
Anyone want to bet that Barra won't even come close to overtaking Tesla this year?
GM’s spinsters tout that the company ranked No. 2 in 2024 EV sales, hardly a surprise given GM had a slew of EV models on the market. To Farley’s credit, Ford’s electric Mustang, which the company proudly builds in Mexico despite claiming on its website that it’s “All In On America”, was the third best-selling EV in the U.S. in 2024, racking up 51,745 vehicle sales, despite losing its eligibility for $7,500 tax credits.
Chevy Equinox EV
GM’s best-selling EV was its Mexican-made and problem plagued Chevy Equinox, which chalked up 28,874 vehicle sales and was eligible for lucrative tax credits. Farley’s F-150 Lightning pickup, which he has admitted isn’t practical for towing, even outsold the EV Equinox with 33,510-unit sales.
Barra for years touted that GM’s driverless taxi Cruise business would generate $50 billion in annual revenues by 2030. Barra last year announced she was closing the business, which Bloomberg three years ago valued at $30 billion when former GM president Dan Ammann oversaw the enterprise. Barra reportedly fired Ammann because he wanted to run Cruise independently of GM.
Cruise ran roughshod over regulators who were concerned about the safety of its technology. The company escaped criminal prosecution for what the Department of Justice said was “providing a false record to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation of a crash involving one of Cruise’s autonomous vehicles.”
Barra was chair of Cruise's board of directors, so she owns the dishonesty.
Class action lawsuits
GM is facing a massive class action lawsuit across 26 states alleging the auto manufacturer violated state consumer protection statutes by knowingly putting vehicles with faulty transmissions on the road, endangering drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. The automaker also is being sued by Texas AG Ken Paxton, alleging the carmaker deliberately and illegally collected and sold drivers’ data to insurance companies without their consent or knowledge. There are some damning allegations about some GM transmissions.
Hummer EV
GM’s monster EV Hummer, whose battery weighs more than a Honda Civic, was deemed more harmful to the environment by a climate group than many of Barra’s gas guzzling trucks and SUVs. The climate group also named four other GM vehicles among the 12 vehicles it deemed most hostile to the environment.
More alarmingly, two auto reviewers warned that the EV Hummer’s brakes were inadequate for its brawn.
So much for Barra’s much touted goal to achieve zero crashes and zero emissions.
Barra could arguably be fired for violations under GM’s “Winning With Integrity” Code of Conduct, which explicitly states, “We Put Safety First.”
Farley’s failures
Barra’s failures are too extensive to mention all of them here, so let’s move on to Farley, who for years has promised that Ford had its shoddy manufacturing issues under control, yet the automaker has been the recall leader under his watch. He recently told analysts that there has been an 18% improvement in the quality of vehicles for Ford’s '25 model launches, a rather startling claim.
Why would anyone buy a Ford ’24 model vehicle knowing they are so decidedly inferior to the ’25 models?
To be fair to Farley, factors contributing to Ford’s shoddy manufacturing predated his occupancy of Ford’s corner office nearly five years ago when legions of high-performance employees were previously fired because of their age and compensations.
Evidence made public from a 2019 lawsuit revealed that to slash costs and impress Wall Street, Ford targeted for elimination salaried workers with flawless performance records who had been promoted, rewarded and cited for excellence but were then deemed expendable because of their age and proximity to key retirement milestones. No doubt, some of Ford’s quality issues stem from firing some of its best and most experienced engineers.
Recall repairs
Damning allegations have emerged about Ford’s handling of recall repairs under Farley’s watch, which resulted in a $165 million fine for failing to comply with federal recall requirements. A Detroit Free Press investigation published last summer found Ford settlements over product liability lawsuits or actions taken by federal regulators hadn’t moved the needle toward a significantly better repair rate for older vehicles with open recalls, especially for older cars and trucks.
Some high-performance employees from rival companies don’t seem to fare well working for Farley’s Ford. Annie Liu, a former head of supply chain, battery and energy at Tesla who joined Ford in 2022, inexplicably left her role after only nine months on the job. Katherine Worthen, a former supply chain executive Ford lured from GE Renewable energy, left after only 16 months on the job.
Farley in 2022 rushed to build a $5.6 billion massive EV campus in Tennessee to manufacture “an expanded lineup of electric F-Series vehicles.” The plant isn’t expected to open until late 2027 at the earliest. The opening of one of two planned battery plants in Kentucky has been delayed indefinitely, and Ford dramatically scaled back a planned battery plant in Michigan spearheaded by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that needlessly resulted in the destruction of fertile farmland and century old trees.
Financially healthy
GM and Ford appear financially healthy, having respectively reported 2024 revenues of $187 billion $185 billion, selling their overpriced trucks and SUVs. One must be an unabashed optimist to believe that the bonanza will continue indefinitely, particularly given the poor quality issues of GM’s and Ford’s vehicles.
Ford’s S&P Global credit rating, which measures the company’s ability to pay back its debt, is just above junk and on notice it could be downgraded. Although it’s unlikely President Trump will make good on his promised 25% percent tariffs on vehicles manufactured in Mexico and Canada, GM’s and Ford’s profits would be impaired if he did.
Hang in there, GM and Ford employees. I’m sure many of you are of the superstar caliber of Saquon Barkley, the running back who helped the Philadelphia Eagles become this year’s Super Bowl winner.
Notably, Barkley wasn’t a superstar when he played for the New York Giants. Matthew Stafford played 12 seasons with the Detroit Lions and never led the team to the Super Bowl. In his first season with the Los Angeles Rams, he led that team to a championship victory.
Regardless of the talent of GM’s and Ford’s employees, when high performance persons work for mediocre-led organizations, too often they falter. Of this I’m certain: Had Elon Musk opted to work for GM or Ford, he wouldn’t have flourished, and no doubt forced out because he had too many seemingly outlandish ideas and wasn’t “a team player.”
Contact Eric Starkman at eric@starkmanapproved. Anonymity assured.
