At least, that's what Kevin Farrish, President of the Stellantis National Dealers Union in the USA, is accusing him of. In a sharply-worded letter, Farrish described the automaker's situation as "disastrous", not hesitating to lay the blame squarely at the door of its CEO.

To put it plainly: Carlos Tavares is accused of channel stuffing, i.e. having inflated Stellantis distributors' inventories far beyond what was necessary to artificially boost his group's sales and profits, and thus justify a record remuneration of almost forty million dollars.

The controversy surrounding this remuneration earlier this year is not new. Evaluated in this context, however, it takes on a completely different dimension than the traditional political aspect. A number of Stellantis shareholders have taken their company to court to demand compensation.

It's true that the transatlantic manufacturer's results have recently been in stark contrast to those of its competitors. The company's operating margins have risen sharply over the past two years, while those of General Motors, Ford and Tesla have fallen, and those of Mercedes, BMW, Honda and Toyota have stagnated.

Faced with a shrinking car market, its dealerships have had to deal with high inventories and unsold goods, and have had to offer large discounts and sacrifice margins. Added to this unfair treatment of its partners are a series of reliability problems in both Europe and North America, a pricing controversy at Jeep, and downright sluggish sales at Chrysler.

The bad publicity Stellantis is currently suffering in the United States is not sparing the Canadian market either. During the presentation of its latest quarterly results, the AutoCanada group - a quarter of whose inventory comes from Stellantis - warned that demand for the manufacturer's vehicles remained very weak.

In its home country of France, the stature of Carlos Tavares is not easily flayed, and yesterday it was announced that he is unlikely to be reappointed. Revered like a king - the precedent with his former boss Carlos Ghosn is troubling here - the Stellantis CEO remains very popular with his troops and the public.

It's hard to believe that he could have so compromised himself at this stage of his career. Although he never came across as a sentimentalist, Mr. Tavares could not have been unaware that such cynical strategic choices would forever chip away at his legend. Unless?

It is, of course, these troubles that explain the apparent discounting of the automotive group, valued on the stock market at just three times its profits. It has distributed EUR19 billion to its shareholders since 2021, i.e. roughly half its current market capitalization.

Clearly, the market does not expect such a performance to be repeated any time soon.