Ford, GM CEOs get gigantic paydays that ignore massive write-downs
Posted by Potomac on April 22, 2026, 19:50:03
Nice. Bet big and get it wrong, and score anyway. WSJ:
Last year Ford announced $19.5 billion in write-offs as it retooled its EV strategy. Ford’s board in addition has changed how it calculates bonuses for Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley and other top executives, according to a recent proxy statement....
Ford last year ended up incurring about $15 billion in EV-related write-downs, while GM’s totaled $7.9 billion. These write-downs were disregarded for the purposes of determining executive compensation.
GM’s board said the “dynamic policy changes” under Trump were outside its executives’ control and “should not unduly penalize management’s multi-year efforts to advance our long-term EV strategy,” according to a recent proxy filing.
GM did keep EV-related goals, which weren’t met, in its annual bonus plan. It made an adjustment so executives wouldn’t benefit from reduced losses when the company stopped making as many EVs. The details of those goals weren’t disclosed in the proxy statement.
Executive compensation in publicly traded businesses should be capped at the lower amount of
$5M annually or 1% of a rolling 5 year average of the firms net profit.
Company boards and C suite executives are on average extremely overpaid and are a massive drain on most companies balance sheets. Their pay exceeds the bounds of fiduciary duty to their companies.
Change my mind. probably just another real jerk in life
It's material value leakage as a result of the rise of passive investing. Exec comp should
be heavily tied to RSUs and ONLY paid on stock gains that survive for 3 years beyond the executive's tenure AND on growth amounts that are at least double the rate of CPI growth over the measuring period. A guy like Tim Apple deserves to be paid. Most of these other chodes are 5-10x overpaid but it works because the passive shares will never call out this shit.
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$5M annually or 1% of a rolling 5 year average of the firms net profit.
Company boards and C suite executives are on average extremely overpaid and are a massive drain on most companies balance sheets. Their pay exceeds the bounds of fiduciary duty to their companies.
Change my mind.
"Iowa women were better than Illini men" - Potomac
on April 22, 2026, 19:50:03
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