The sporty manager should shoulder the job in addition to his duties as head of Porsche like Atlas once did the globe – after all, the manufacturer of elegant sports cars and less elegant SUVs has an IPO in front of the chest. Investors are surprised – also about the recent idea that CFO Arno Antlitz should also support the CEO as Chief Operating Officer. In this way, the overload of one is compensated by the overload of the other.
As a result, a directional decision was also made at VW: The younger manager, who at some point wants to save combustion engines with synthetic fuels (e-fuels), triumphs over his Austrian boss, who, like a second Elon Musk, is one hundred percent committed to electromobility. Since the Diess contract runs until 2025, he can expect compensation of 20 million to 30 million euros and – according to the usual practice of the house – a consulting contract. A consultant has to produce visions and usually not be responsible for the implementation: A role description that could suit Herbert Diess.
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(Photo: IMAGO/Political Moments)
What is striking here is how closely the communication professionals from Wolfsburg and Stuttgart have kept to two top bids of the PR industry with this tricky personnel matter.
- First: If possible, announce explosive internal matters on Friday, 6 p.m. if a journalist has already mentally finished the weekend and the newspapers have been printed. Then there could be a good chance that a fresher story on Monday will make you forget the old paper from Friday.
- Secondly: The best way to iron out negative spins is with a generous dose of humor. So it became known that Blume divulged to the Porsche workforce that in regular contact with the then prospective Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), he had helped to ensure that e-fuels appeared in the coalition agreement. The VW professionals remembered #Porschegate that it was known that Mr. Lindner was a Porsche driver, but there was no live ticker for the coalition negotiations. That shouldn’t be enough to start as a copywriter in the ZDF satirical program “Die Anstalt”.
The quarter and half denials and eloquent apologies that have since been made allow the conclusion that either the Porsche boss was a braggart or that he is now making himself smaller than an Isetta for reasons of state. It should be noted that Christian Lindner thinks highly of e-fuels long before the coalition talks.
(Photo: imago images / Jan Huebner)
My colleagues are presenting a profound focus on the Wolfsburg turning point today. We describe the job specifications of the new boss Blume in detail: It’s so thick you’d have to be Batman to succeed. According to our information, before the departure of the solo dancer Diess, the climber had talked to top representatives on the board and supervisory board about how to become a team again, the ballet of good deeds.
An orderly hand is needed in production and in international business, the XXL board of eleven (!) members is ready for a skim milk cure. Blume was already the secret “playmaker in the group, who never forgot to get the approval of the Porsche and Piëch owner families,” we write in the portrait. The only strange thing is that Diess previously held the chair of the supervisory board of the software combine Cariad, which was disfigured by mismanagement. Conclusion: This is a permanent construction site à la “Stuttgart 21”, where one can only hope that trains will eventually pass through.
Our political lead provides another hot topic. We reveal how the dispute over the innovative Chinese IT group Huawei, which critics see as the 007 service of an authoritarian state, breaks out again with full force. According to our information, the federal government reserves the right to prohibit network operators in Germany from using “critical components” from Chinese manufacturers. The Federal Ministry of the Interior confirms that even the use of parts that have already been installed can be prohibited “if public order or security in the Federal Republic is likely to be impaired”. This applies in particular if a producer is “untrustworthy”. We know from Bertolt Brecht: “Trust is exhausted when it is claimed.”
(Photo: AP)
Directional elections are the new torment of democracies, this extreme “left” versus “right” that the USA, for example, is likely to experience in 2024. Brazil is setting another good example with its presidential elections scheduled for October 2nd. The left-wing ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is taking on the incumbent head of state Jair Bolsonaro, a Copacabana Trump. Lula, who was nominated by his Labor Party PT last Thursday, is far ahead of Bolsonaro in the polls. The challenged president has already prophylactically questioned the electronic voting system in Brazil in general.
If there were a slanderous “Forked Tongue” award, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would have earned it. In April, the propagandist flatly denied that his country was striving to overthrow the government in Ukraine, but now he declares: “We are definitely helping the Ukrainian people to free themselves from the regime, which is absolutely hostile to the people and history.” With brazen lies Russian spokesmen also called in, who initially denied that their own forces shelled the important Ukrainian port of Odessa with its grain delivery facilities on Sunday – a day after Moscow and Kyiv signed an agreement to resume grain deliveries. Meanwhile, Russia admitted to having attacked Odessa with rockets.
And then there is the American boxing legend Muhammad Ali (1942 to 2016), who was once called “Cassius Clay”, was extremely catchy and early on – to the astonishment of the world – promoted the German “Capri-Sonne”. One of his famous world champion belts was recently auctioned for $6.18 million. Ali wore the prop in his famous 1974 fight against George Foreman in what was then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (“Rumble in the Jungle”). Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, paid one of the highest sums of money ever paid for a historic trophy for the boxing belt. The collector hints at showing the boxing belt at an exhibition in Chicago in August.
To wrap up and transition into a new week, we could quote the loudmouth with the strong fists: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”. However, if the news situation makes us feel too queasy, we could also think of our national motto “You’ll never walk alone”, borrowed from Liverpool FC fans. It says: “At the end of a storm / There´sa golden sky / And the sweet silver song of a lark.”
I wish you a golden day with larks singing.
It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
Senior editor