Former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn – who despite being out on bail, was re-arrested last week on fresh allegations that he used company funds to enrich himself by up to US$5 million – has addressed the public for the first time since he was first arrested last year.
In the video above, he professed his love for Japan and Nissan (untainted despite his recent ordeal), which he has served for 20 years. Ghosn said that while he was painted as greedy dictator, he is innocent of the charges. It’s a plot and a conspiracy, a backstabbing by former colleagues, he claimed.
“This is a conspiracy. This is not about greed or dictatorship, this is about a plot, this about a conspiracy, this is about a backstabbing,” Ghosn said in the video, released by his lawyers. The former Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance chief said that the conspiracy was borne out of fear that he would bring Nissan closer to its top shareholder, Renault.
“There was fear that the next step of the alliance in terms of convergence and in terms of moving towards a merger, would in a certain way threaten some people, or eventually threaten the autonomy of Nissan,” he said.
Ghosn explained that this autonomy has never been threatened in the last 19 years that it was in the Alliance, and that he is the fiercest defender of that autonomy. “But this autonomy must be based on performance. The performance of Nissan is not good, it has degraded a lot.”
He then pointed fingers at “a few executives, who for their own interest and their own selfish fears, are creating a lot of value destruction.” Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa? “Names, you know them. We’re talking about people who really played a very dirty game,” Ghosn said, adding that “hopefully, the truth and facts will happen.”
There will be plenty more drama to come in this episode, that’s for sure. Evidence and details will surface when the case is played out in court, and it’s clear that Ghosn isn’t going down without a fight.
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