Speaker 1: Thank you so much for downloading making a killing. I'm
Speaker 1: Bethany McClain, and I'm cutting through the noise to reframe
Speaker 1: the stories you know and uncover the ones you don't know.
Speaker 1: Truth is stranger than fiction. I think about that saying
Speaker 1: a lot, because it has the great virtue of being
Speaker 1: well true, and it's particularly true when it comes to
Speaker 1: the world of business. I mean, from the financial crisis
Speaker 1: to Bernie Madoff, you could not make the stuff up
Speaker 1: even with that high bar. The story of Carlos Gone
Speaker 1: stands out. Gone, of course, is the former head of
Speaker 1: Nissan Motor and Renault. He is was a revered figure
Speaker 1: in the automotive world. In the fall of twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: he was jailed in Japan on charges of financial misconduct.
Speaker 1: While he was out on bail, he hatched an escape
Speaker 1: plan that involved being smuggled out of the country, escaping
Speaker 1: security by hiding in a large black box, which, thank goodness,
Speaker 1: apparently did have breathing holes cut in it. He's now
Speaker 1: living in a pink mansion in Lebanon, a pink mansion
Speaker 1: that Nissan had bought and renovated for his use. I mean, right,
Speaker 1: talk about truth being stranger than fiction. So there are
Speaker 1: at least two sides to this story. The official version,
Speaker 1: the Japanese version, is that Gone stole from Nissan, partly
Speaker 1: by paying himself more than anyone, including investors new Here's
Speaker 1: a surprise. Going denies those charges. In his telling, Nissan's
Speaker 1: Japanese executives wanted to be rid of him and found
Speaker 1: a horrible way to do it. I have not fled justice,
Speaker 1: I have escaped injustice and political persecution, Go and said
Speaker 1: in a statement after his escape. For sure, Japan treat's
Speaker 1: white color criminals very differently than the US does. Among
Speaker 1: other things, Gone was held in solitary confinement and interrogated
Speaker 1: for eight hours a day. The conviction rate is close
Speaker 1: to one. My longtime friend Jonah Sarah wrote in a
Speaker 1: recent Bloomberg piece that Gone thought to himself, you are
Speaker 1: going to die in Japan if you don't get out,
Speaker 1: So Gone took matters into his own hands. Is this
Speaker 1: justifiable or is this a sign of the entitlement of
Speaker 1: the global elite? And who is Carlos Going an innocent
Speaker 1: man wrongly accused or a common thief. I began this
Speaker 1: season of making a killing with Joan Oh Sarah talking
Speaker 1: about Jewel, So it seemed fitting to end it with Joe,
Speaker 1: who wrote this about Carlos going. When you get right
Speaker 1: down to it, Nissan and the Japanese prosecutors put a rich,
Speaker 1: powerful man, a man unaccustomed to being defied through hell.
Speaker 1: Now that he has escaped, it's his turn to put
Speaker 1: them through hell. I'm thrilled to have Joe here to
Speaker 1: talk about what will surely go down in history is
Speaker 1: one of the greatest business stories ever. Certainly one of
Speaker 1: the greatest escapes ever, that's for sure. So how did
Speaker 1: he do it? Let's start with that. Well, the best
Speaker 1: part about that as nobody yet knows. There's only I mean,
Speaker 1: for instance, you know, when you think about it, if
Speaker 1: you make an escape like that, you have to plan
Speaker 1: it for months, right months? How did he find the
Speaker 1: guy who planned it? How did they how did they
Speaker 1: communicate with each other? Well? Wait on that question, is
Speaker 1: it even a guy who planned it or do we
Speaker 1: think it might have been his wife? Oh? No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: well I'm pretty sure it wasn't his wife. No, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a man who's a you know, a former
Speaker 1: paramilitary type who does security these kind of high risk
Speaker 1: security Michael Taylor. Right, Yes, that's right. His name is
Speaker 1: Michael Taylor. Thank you. So how did Michael Taylor get
Speaker 1: in touched with Carlos Gone? How did they plan it
Speaker 1: so that Gone knew what to do and when to
Speaker 1: do it? Um, it's obvious that they had They had
Speaker 1: come to Japan and they were watching the people who
Speaker 1: were watching Gone. So there was a there was a
Speaker 1: camera that watched them all the time, and there were
Speaker 1: people out Japanese you know, security guards outside. But they
Speaker 1: realized that there was a certain week in the year
Speaker 1: when the Japanese basically took the week off because it
Speaker 1: was a you know, their high holidays, they're big vacation time,
Speaker 1: and they weren't there, and they figured that out and
Speaker 1: they realized that that was potentially the time to do it.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, the first round of rumors, who
Speaker 1: was I'm so sorry it wasn't true, was that he
Speaker 1: had he had hidden in a in a in a
Speaker 1: musical instrument case for like for a double base doesn't
Speaker 1: but you know, it's kind of pretty amazing what he did.
Speaker 1: He he walked out, he put one of those masks
Speaker 1: around his face, as many Japanese people do when their outdoors.
Speaker 1: You know, he walked about a mile, he walked into
Speaker 1: a hotel and then he walked out to the other
Speaker 1: side of the hotel um presumably not being followed, obviously
Speaker 1: not being followed. And then he got on a train. Wow.
Speaker 1: And he and he took like a three hour train
Speaker 1: ride to Osaka. And once he got there, that's when
Speaker 1: he was met. This team of people who put him
Speaker 1: in this big black box, put him on that line alone,
Speaker 1: this team of people who put him in a big
Speaker 1: black box, righty, and they put him on an airplane,
Speaker 1: a private airplane. They didn't want to fly directly to
Speaker 1: Berute because they were afraid that that would send up
Speaker 1: too many signals. So there was an istanbol right and
Speaker 1: then he had to get past you know, customs, a
Speaker 1: second round of customs. Having sneaked past the Japanese customs,
Speaker 1: then he had to get past the Turkish customs. So
Speaker 1: we went back in the black box. They took him
Speaker 1: out of one airplane, put him in another airplane, and
Speaker 1: he landed in Lebanon. And Lebanon presumably he can't be extradited. Well,
Speaker 1: Lebanon does not have an extradition treaty with Japan. Also,
Speaker 1: he is a Lebanese citizen among his other citizenships. He
Speaker 1: is a highly revered figure in Lebanon. They even have
Speaker 1: a postage stamp named after him. I mean, he's one
Speaker 1: of their few kind of international businessman. They don't have
Speaker 1: very many. And then his wife met him also in Lebanon,
Speaker 1: so she obviously knew what was going on. So she
Speaker 1: goes to Lebanon. And then the hilarious thing is he
Speaker 1: you know that this is one of the houses that
Speaker 1: he had refurbished, renovated Nissons die. Now the question is
Speaker 1: whether Nissan knew that or not. But he's basically he's
Speaker 1: squatting in it, and he's kind of daring Nissan to
Speaker 1: try and kick him out. And is it true that
Speaker 1: it's pink? I don't know why that details definitely think
Speaker 1: it's definitely. I've seen it from the archide. But see,
Speaker 1: this is why I asked the question about whether his
Speaker 1: wife was involved, because his wife met him there, so
Speaker 1: she had to have known. Yes, that's absolutely true. She
Speaker 1: had to have known something for sure. But don't forget
Speaker 1: that he had not been one of the things that
Speaker 1: most upset him during his ordeal. And I'm sure, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that ordeal in a bit is that he is.
Speaker 1: Part of his bail, he was not allowed to speak
Speaker 1: to his wife at all, and his children really, at
Speaker 1: least one of them couldn't come to Japan because she
Speaker 1: was afraid she'd be arrested too, So he didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of contact with his family. He Wanda spoke
Speaker 1: speaking to his wife twice with permission and with people
Speaker 1: listening in. Once was around Thanksgiving and once was around Christmas.
Speaker 1: We're going to come back to the conditions of his
Speaker 1: bail and the conditions of his treatment because it's important
Speaker 1: both in the micro and interesting in the macro. But
Speaker 1: what's really interesting about this is we know the details
Speaker 1: of the escape, but we have no clue how it
Speaker 1: was planned. And listening to you talk about the monitoring
Speaker 1: of his conversations with his wife, how did he manage
Speaker 1: to have communication with the people who helped him escape
Speaker 1: if everything he said was being monitored. When he was
Speaker 1: in the home that he was using in Japan in Tokyo,
Speaker 1: he was not allowed to have any electronics, no internet,
Speaker 1: no television, no nothing. But when he but during the
Speaker 1: day he was allowed to go to his lawyer's office
Speaker 1: where he did to have access to a computer and
Speaker 1: did meet with people, and he didn't meet people were
Speaker 1: allowed to come and meet with him. So presumably that's
Speaker 1: how it was done in person or possibly over the internet,
Speaker 1: when he was at his lawyer's office. Although his lawyers
Speaker 1: says he knows nothing, I'm not sure his lawyer didn't
Speaker 1: know nothing. I'm sure his lawyer. Jampan is a country
Speaker 1: where face matters so much, yep. And he humiliated his
Speaker 1: lawyers by doing this. His lawyers had vouched for him,
Speaker 1: and his lawyers were trying to show through his trial
Speaker 1: that a Westerner could get a fair trial. That was
Speaker 1: their goal. And you know, they one of the very
Speaker 1: tiny handful of big time defense attorneys. I mean in
Speaker 1: the US they're all over the place, but in Japan
Speaker 1: they're very rare. And this was a moment for these
Speaker 1: lawyers to try and make the case that Japan could
Speaker 1: treat a Westerner fairly. I just wanted to pause on
Speaker 1: this note, for it was from the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: and they wrote that the planning involved a team of
Speaker 1: between ten and fifteen people of different nationalities, and that
Speaker 1: in all the team took more than twenty trips to
Speaker 1: Japan and visited at least ten Japanese airports before selecting
Speaker 1: the Osaka Airport as a week link. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a stunning degree of coordination. Right before we move on
Speaker 1: from this, Michael Taylor, this operative who helped Going. He's
Speaker 1: a story in his own right, isn't he? He is
Speaker 1: He's done this a few times before. He's actually been
Speaker 1: in prison for something, um, you know, and and yes
Speaker 1: he when when the when the film gets made, Michael
Speaker 1: Taylor will have a starring role forre. You can just
Speaker 1: see that this is everything about this is cinematic, right right,
Speaker 1: get right down to the black boxman. In fact, where's rumors?
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal pointed a rumor that, uh, Carlos Gone
Speaker 1: was already in negotiations with Netflix, but he denied it.
Speaker 1: He denied it, So tell tell me more about who
Speaker 1: Carlos Gone is. For people who don't, who haven't followed
Speaker 1: the craziness in the automotive industry, one way to think
Speaker 1: about it, Carlos Gone is the Lee Iacocca of the
Speaker 1: modern era, the larger than life auto exac who performs
Speaker 1: miracles and does is that is that real? To some degree?
Speaker 1: It is, yes, So he's hard, is what happened. Carlos
Speaker 1: Gone was the CEO and chairman of Renault, a French company. Ye,
Speaker 1: Nissan is in terrible, terrible trouble, and so they go
Speaker 1: to him and they ask him to what could he
Speaker 1: do to help them? So what he does is he
Speaker 1: sets up It's not a merger, it's an alliance. They
Speaker 1: remain separate companies, but they do things like they buy
Speaker 1: supplies together, and they do some back office things that
Speaker 1: save money, and they coordinate in various ways. They actually
Speaker 1: even for a long time split up territories. So like
Speaker 1: Nissan was big in the US, Renault was big in Europe.
Speaker 1: They both went to China and you know, I said
Speaker 1: he was Lee a Coca. A better phrase might be
Speaker 1: he was the Marshal Tito of the of the auto business.
Speaker 1: Because what you had was you had this very French
Speaker 1: culture Renault, this extremely Japanese culture Nissan, and you had
Speaker 1: this one guy who somehow managed to ride herd over
Speaker 1: all of it. So then Nissan didn't. He did turn
Speaker 1: Nissan around. I mean it was really quite dramatic, to
Speaker 1: the point where Nissan became the stronger of the two.
Speaker 1: Companies and Renault became the weaker, but because of the
Speaker 1: way the alliance was structured, Renault owned more of Nissan,
Speaker 1: like fifteen percent. Then Nissan owned a Renault which was
Speaker 1: five percent. So one of the things, one of them
Speaker 1: that began to upset the Japanese not the only thing,
Speaker 1: but one of the things was that Renault, which had
Speaker 1: become the weaker company, still add the stronger position on
Speaker 1: the board and in terms of stock ownership, and so
Speaker 1: do you credit do most people credit Nissan's ability to
Speaker 1: thrive to Carlos Scone and he is he that guy
Speaker 1: who was able to pull these companies through an incredibly
Speaker 1: troubled and difficult time in the automotive industry globally, Most
Speaker 1: people do give him that credit. Yes, he's viewed as
Speaker 1: as a as a as a true giant of the AutoWorld,
Speaker 1: to the point where as he as he noted during
Speaker 1: his flamboyant press conference, once he escaped. You know, Steve
Speaker 1: Rattner approached him during the financial crisis when he was
Speaker 1: the autos Are Obama's artos Are and asked him if
Speaker 1: he would be willing to come in and take over
Speaker 1: General Motors. Wow, Okay, so this guy, he doesn't lack
Speaker 1: for ego either. So well, I do have to say, yes,
Speaker 1: if you've if you've been around CEOs, there's a certain type,
Speaker 1: you know, larger than life, totally convinced they're right about everything.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're all never in doubt, exactly exactly. Um but really,
Speaker 1: um kind of aggressive he was? He is was all
Speaker 1: of those things. Um uh. And yeah, you could sort
Speaker 1: of see how he would drive the Japanese mad. And
Speaker 1: before we come back to that, wasn't he trying to
Speaker 1: do something with fat and Chrysler? He was trying to
Speaker 1: pull off yet another coup, right, Yes he was. He
Speaker 1: had already um brought me to Beish into the alliance. Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: he was, you know, maneuvering to bring other people into
Speaker 1: other companies into the alliance. But the big issue really
Speaker 1: really for Nissan was they felt that he was going
Speaker 1: to not just have an alliance, but he was going
Speaker 1: to merge Nissan and Renault and they were dead set
Speaker 1: against that. And why because they perceived Nissan is a
Speaker 1: stronger company, or because of Japanese pride and Nissan not
Speaker 1: wanting to see it submerged or subsumed into Renauld. Both
Speaker 1: is the answer. Um, you know they're they're you know,
Speaker 1: the Pese. There were xenophobic people, without question, and um uh,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of tensions within the alliance even
Speaker 1: you know, before this this came up, the idea of
Speaker 1: a merger, and yes, Nissan felt like, we're the king
Speaker 1: of the hill. Now, why should we stoop to help,
Speaker 1: you know, struggling we're now. Yeah, I just saw this
Speaker 1: note in here that six years after after after Gone
Speaker 1: took the top job, Nissan had surpassed Honda to become
Speaker 1: Japan's number two automaker. It's market capitalization had quintupled and
Speaker 1: its operating margin had risen tenfold. So that I mean,
Speaker 1: as I and in the modern world, that's how you
Speaker 1: become a legend. Yeah, I guess that's true. So were
Speaker 1: there any whispers about him up until the fall of
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen? Was there any talk that this guy was
Speaker 1: somehow overstepping some kind of bounds or was the fall
Speaker 1: of twenty and eighteen, when it all exploded out of
Speaker 1: seemingly nowhere, there was not so much as a whisper
Speaker 1: in terms of, you know, whether people thought he was
Speaker 1: doing things on the fly or on the side, or
Speaker 1: or or playing tricks or playing games. It was one
Speaker 1: of the things that were so shocking about this story
Speaker 1: is it's it's it's as if Mary Barra flew to
Speaker 1: Canada and was was was arrested for you know, uh,
Speaker 1: stealing from General Motors. That's how kind of shocking this was.
Speaker 1: And the way they did it, you know, um, the
Speaker 1: Japanese Nissan executives who were plotting this with prosecutors and
Speaker 1: that that is why. Oh yes, there's no question about that. Um,
Speaker 1: you know. They they they tricked Goons former number two
Speaker 1: into flying back to Japan, which he had not done
Speaker 1: in three years and was awaiting back surgery. Wow, they
Speaker 1: tricked him. An old friend of his from Nissan called
Speaker 1: him and said, hey, we really need to hear for
Speaker 1: this meeting. We really come on, We'll send the private
Speaker 1: plane and they did, and he lands and he gets arrested,
Speaker 1: and then gone has no idea this is coming. He
Speaker 1: lands and he gets arrested, and that's where they find out,
Speaker 1: and that's where the world finds out that there are
Speaker 1: these allegations against him. Truth is stranger than fiction, indeed, right,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's an astonishing story. One of the
Speaker 1: problems with trying to grapple with the story is that
Speaker 1: it's really hard to know even now who's telling the truth.
Speaker 1: Why is it so hard to know? His compensation was public? Right?
Speaker 1: These were public companies, and so what was disclosed is
Speaker 1: knowable and what he took is knowable. Where does the
Speaker 1: complexity come in? Okay? Maybe pause first on what the
Speaker 1: charges against him. So there's a couple of things. The
Speaker 1: first charge is that he hid compensation from Nissan and
Speaker 1: the board. This seems frankly pretty unlikely, although he did
Speaker 1: settle with the sec for small, by his terms, a
Speaker 1: small amount of money, um without uh, you know, denying.
Speaker 1: Was it affirming or denying the charges? Yes, but the
Speaker 1: exact language was that they he settled charges that that
Speaker 1: he and Nissan had failed to disclose more than one
Speaker 1: hundred and forty million in compensation and benefits due to
Speaker 1: be paid to him in retirement. Right, So that hundred
Speaker 1: So that one hundred and forty million is a big
Speaker 1: is a big sticking point. So he and his former
Speaker 1: number two, his name is Greg Kelly, they say there
Speaker 1: was they had not signed off on the deal yet,
Speaker 1: that that they had they had sketched it out along
Speaker 1: with some Nissan executives. They had all sketched it out together,
Speaker 1: but there was no uh guarantee it was going to happen.
Speaker 1: It had not been um uh, it had not been certified,
Speaker 1: had not been approved by the board, and so they
Speaker 1: say there's no there there. Nissan says, you know, this
Speaker 1: was that you were doing this behind our back, and
Speaker 1: in so doing you were violating the Japanese law. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that's number one. Number two the second set of
Speaker 1: charges was that he was, you know, an effect laundering,
Speaker 1: laundering Nissan's money to put it in his pocket. So
Speaker 1: the big example of that that when they he uses
Speaker 1: is um that there was a dealer in the Middle
Speaker 1: East and Nissan paid this dealer millions of dollars and then,
Speaker 1: according to Nissan, the dealer somehow funneled that back some
Speaker 1: of that back to Carlos Gone. Gone says it was
Speaker 1: all on the up and up, that the money that
Speaker 1: was spent to this Midias dealer, who he acknowledges was
Speaker 1: a friend, was not unlike any you know, up front
Speaker 1: incentives to any dealer. So he says, you know, that
Speaker 1: was on the up and up, and then the third
Speaker 1: sort of set of charges. Um, it's really more like
Speaker 1: Dennis Kozlowski's uh six thousand dollars curtain shower curtain. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right, it's more like that, which was not illegal, right,
Speaker 1: but it was a waste of corporate assets. And so
Speaker 1: he had these houses, you know, literally like five houses
Speaker 1: that were all renovated for him on Nissan's dime, all
Speaker 1: supposedly owned by Nissan. His kids all went to Stanford
Speaker 1: on Nissan's dime. His kids cut and went to Stanford
Speaker 1: on Nissan's dime. Well, but I want to figure out
Speaker 1: how to work that one that that you really I
Speaker 1: mean he had that in his contract, okay, but they
Speaker 1: would pay for it. And then the famous, most famous
Speaker 1: of all, the birthday party for his wife and Versailles
Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette teamed right yes, and then he goes at
Speaker 1: the press conference he gave, he really went off on that.
Speaker 1: It's like, we've spent so much money helping Versailles, making
Speaker 1: Rascaille great, Versaids the place everybody wants to go. Rasaide's
Speaker 1: good for our customers, it's good for our you know,
Speaker 1: ad agencies. Da da da da da da dada so
Speaker 1: he somehow argue, we're defensive about at Versailles. I think
Speaker 1: that every any single other thing that he spoke about.
Speaker 1: So he somehow argues that hosting a Marie Antoinette themed
Speaker 1: birthday party for his wife at Versailles was beneficial to
Speaker 1: Nissan's brand pretty much. But I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: that it was Marie Antoinette. Okay, I've read that somewhere
Speaker 1: that might that might that might be like that, like
Speaker 1: the musical instrument case right, too good to be true?
Speaker 1: Um So, so what does Renault say about all of this,
Speaker 1: because they you would think they would have a view too.
Speaker 1: Are they on Nissan's site or are they going no
Speaker 1: is uh Arna doesn't know what to do, to be honest.
Speaker 1: Um Nau's main concern, especially at the beginning, was to
Speaker 1: shore up the alliance and not let the alliance fall apart.
Speaker 1: For the most part, that is a losing battle because
Speaker 1: without going at the top, the culture classes have gotten
Speaker 1: worse and worse. The board disagreements have gotten worse and worse.
Speaker 1: And I do have to wonder whether whether the alliance
Speaker 1: can survive or not, which it will be really bad
Speaker 1: for a no UM in terms of in terms of
Speaker 1: Carlos Gone, they have sort of been tiptoeing towards the
Speaker 1: idea that maybe there was some wrongdoing, but they haven't.
Speaker 1: They haven't really come out and laid out a set
Speaker 1: of allegations the way Nissan did. Okay, so it's still unclear.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really complicated for the French because France
Speaker 1: is in a very anti elitist mood right now. Makran,
Speaker 1: the president is viewed as an elitist, Carlos Gone is
Speaker 1: viewed as an elitist. In a different era, it's quite
Speaker 1: possible the French would have gone, you know, to great
Speaker 1: Lance to spring him from prison, but not today. But
Speaker 1: not today, they just kind of kept their mouth shut
Speaker 1: and really didn't hasn't done much of anything, great Kelly,
Speaker 1: what's happened to him? Um? Nothing so far are which
Speaker 1: he's still in jail and no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: He was. He was out on bail just as Carlos
Speaker 1: Gohne was awaiting his trial, just as Carlos Gone was. Um.
Speaker 1: There was some fear that he would be thrown back
Speaker 1: in jail as as kind of punishment or revenge for
Speaker 1: gons escape. But that does not appear to have happened,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, on the one hand, this is
Speaker 1: kind of rough for him because obviously he's not gonna
Speaker 1: he's not gonna get out of Japan anytime soon. But
Speaker 1: on the other hand, this doubles the The Japanese are
Speaker 1: going to have a really hard time saying this guy
Speaker 1: should go to jail for twenty years when the ring
Speaker 1: leader quote unquote has escaped Lebanon, So that actually may
Speaker 1: work out for him. So back to this point about
Speaker 1: how Carlos Gone was treated in prison. Tell us about
Speaker 1: the conditions first of all. Okay, so let me begin
Speaker 1: by saying that there's a there's a phrase for how
Speaker 1: the Japanese deal with people are accusing of crimes. It's
Speaker 1: called hostage justice. And the idea is that the Japanese
Speaker 1: are not looking for evidence, They're looking for confessions. And
Speaker 1: that's the way the system works. And so and that's
Speaker 1: why they have a ninety nine conviction rate because most
Speaker 1: of the time when they go to court, the persons confessed.
Speaker 1: And the way they get do you confess is you know,
Speaker 1: um eleven and twelve hours of interrogation a day, uh
Speaker 1: no lawyer present um lights on twenty four seven. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, your room is constantly cold, your your cell
Speaker 1: is constantly cold. Um. There's various other forms of you know,
Speaker 1: what you might call benign torture. In other words, they're
Speaker 1: not physically beating him, but they're making his life completely
Speaker 1: utterly miserable. And then the way the system works is that, Um,
Speaker 1: after twenty three days, they have to either let him
Speaker 1: out on bail or come up with new charges. And
Speaker 1: so what they did constantly was they would, you know,
Speaker 1: wait till the last minute, and just as he was
Speaker 1: about to be sprung from bail, they throw in new charges.
Speaker 1: So we wound up spending a total of one hundred
Speaker 1: and some odd days in prison, you know, under these conditions,
Speaker 1: under these interrogation conditions, and they're always saying to him,
Speaker 1: you know, if you ever want to see your wife again,
Speaker 1: you better confess. You know, we're going to make this
Speaker 1: much worse for you if you don't confess. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's just like you know, what you would think and
Speaker 1: think would not go on in Russia or China. And
Speaker 1: the fact that he didn't confess suggests either that he
Speaker 1: believes himself to be innocent or that he's really tough, well,
Speaker 1: son of a bit, I think it takes a lot
Speaker 1: to resist that. Yeah, I would think so too. So
Speaker 1: is there just to play devil's advocate? And I'm not
Speaker 1: arguing that people necessarily should be treated like Carloscone does.
Speaker 1: But is there any argument that in a world where
Speaker 1: many people here feel we go too easy on white
Speaker 1: color criminals and that people who do damage, but our
Speaker 1: white collar criminals get far lighter treatment than those who are,
Speaker 1: for instance, in possession of marijuana, and so is there
Speaker 1: is there any argument that that might deter the sort
Speaker 1: of happenings that we see in the US from the
Speaker 1: financial crisis to en Rondo Thranis well. I mean, I
Speaker 1: would never argue that white collar criminals should be denied
Speaker 1: new process and should be and confessions should be tried
Speaker 1: to be forced out of them. I would never argue that.
Speaker 1: To me, the issue is in the US that we
Speaker 1: don't our prosecutors have lost the nerve to indict white
Speaker 1: collar criminals, and that they and the courts, you know,
Speaker 1: various rulings in court have made it more difficult to
Speaker 1: bring white collar prosecutions. That's a lot different from from
Speaker 1: what happens in Japan. And really the outrage about what
Speaker 1: happened in Japan really had less to do with whether
Speaker 1: or not Carlos Gone had committed a crime than this
Speaker 1: kind of a new insight that, oh my god, look
Speaker 1: how their justice system operates. Right, It's like what Western country.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not a Western country, but they have
Speaker 1: Western principles. What Western country treats prisoners like this treats
Speaker 1: and treats someone not even a prisoner, someone who's just
Speaker 1: been accused without even being found guilty in that way. Right.
Speaker 1: And so here's the other thing I was thinking about
Speaker 1: this is that, you know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: happened is that Greg Kelly gave an interview at some
Speaker 1: point to a Japanese newspaper, and he made a series
Speaker 1: of accusations about the top people at Nissan, the very
Speaker 1: people who had plotted against him and Carlos Scone. Wow,
Speaker 1: and what did he say? He said that they had
Speaker 1: padded their salaries and that they had done things. They
Speaker 1: had done the exact same sort of things that they
Speaker 1: were accusing Carlos Scone of doing. And say that again,
Speaker 1: when did he give this interview before or after he
Speaker 1: was arrested. Oh no, well, okay, I think it might
Speaker 1: have been this past summer. Okay, But anyway, that the
Speaker 1: upshot was that the CEO had to resign, that the
Speaker 1: other people involved had to resign, that they had to
Speaker 1: pay back some of the money. They were guilty and
Speaker 1: they admitted it, but they got slaps on the risk
Speaker 1: because it was apparently in the interest of Nissan that
Speaker 1: they did this. No, they got slaps on the risk
Speaker 1: because they're Japanese. That's interesting. So in other words, even
Speaker 1: that system of laws that it's in the company's interest
Speaker 1: or against the company's interest doesn't really apply. It also
Speaker 1: depends on who you are, right Well, in this particular case,
Speaker 1: that was compounded by the fact that they didn't want
Speaker 1: to put the people who were accusing Carlo's gone in
Speaker 1: prison because that were completely undercut their ability to prosecute it.
Speaker 1: So is it just a completely ridiculous idea that the
Speaker 1: justice system should function the same way for everyone, regardless
Speaker 1: of who they are. You look, that's not a ridiculous thing.
Speaker 1: But you know, that's not how the world works. I mean,
Speaker 1: it just isn't. Well, that's one of the larger implications
Speaker 1: of this story. Isn't it that that's just not how
Speaker 1: the world works. Well, it's the larger implication of the
Speaker 1: Eptein story. It was, until very recently, the larger implication
Speaker 1: of the Harvey Weinstein story. I mean, it's the larger
Speaker 1: implication of the financial crisis story. I mean, you're, you know,
Speaker 1: rich people get get top top lawyers, and they can
Speaker 1: put pressure on that other people can't. I mean, Carlos
Speaker 1: Gone didn't have that going for him, which is part
Speaker 1: of why he is, which is a large part of
Speaker 1: why he decided he had to escape because he had
Speaker 1: he had no he had no swag in Japan. So
Speaker 1: are you pro or con his escape? I mean, would
Speaker 1: you say that he saw a set of rules that
Speaker 1: he thought were unfair and so he used all the
Speaker 1: resources he could marshal to flee that set of rules
Speaker 1: and find a different set because he could. Or do
Speaker 1: you think he should have stayed to face the music
Speaker 1: in Japan because that's their system of rules, and that's
Speaker 1: I don't know what you do. I agree that he
Speaker 1: would not have gotten a fair trial in Japan, and
Speaker 1: I also believe that he was fundamentally kidnapped and so
Speaker 1: escaping for kidnappers, even though it's a government seems okay
Speaker 1: to me. On the other hand, I really do understand
Speaker 1: those who say, you know, just because you're rich, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't get to decide what jurisdiction, you know, you get
Speaker 1: prosecuted in. Right, isn't the essential problem with our world
Speaker 1: the fact that people who don't have to follow the rules,
Speaker 1: that people who can pay not to follow the rules
Speaker 1: can pay not to follow them right where every video
Speaker 1: else has to. That's exactly. And you know, you have
Speaker 1: to be very rich to pull off what he pulled off.
Speaker 1: So before we before we come back to how this
Speaker 1: all plays out, what does it mean for Nissan and
Speaker 1: renew Nothing good? Nothing good for Nissan either, No, no Nissan.
Speaker 1: If you look at Nissan's stock, it's just tumbled since
Speaker 1: he since this happened, Renee Reneau remains a very troubled company.
Speaker 1: You know, we're in a glot of autos right now.
Speaker 1: Neither company is doing all that well. China. Nissan's working
Speaker 1: really hard to uh, you know, move to electric vehicles.
Speaker 1: They have some. They have the Leaf, which is a
Speaker 1: fairly popular model. Um, but you know, the range of
Speaker 1: the Leaf doesn't even come close to a Tesla, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think this is a bet that's so
Speaker 1: far not particularly working well for them. You wrote this,
Speaker 1: which is great. Going has been an awful distraction for Nissan,
Speaker 1: which has costed dearly. With Going now free to defend
Speaker 1: himself and to hurl his own allegations at the company,
Speaker 1: it's only going to get worse. At this point. Nissan
Speaker 1: couldn't call a truce even even if it wanted to,
Speaker 1: and it can't win either. Nissan has to decide whether
Speaker 1: it is more interested in pursuing Going or fixing what's
Speaker 1: wrong with the company. It has already proved that it
Speaker 1: can't do both. Well. I think that's true. I think
Speaker 1: that's absolutely true. Of course I did write that, so
Speaker 1: of course you better think it's true. Right, But you know,
Speaker 1: think about it. Nissan has spent so much of the
Speaker 1: past year and a half just trying to you know,
Speaker 1: leak to the press and do this and do that,
Speaker 1: to to throw these allegations out, to to to be
Speaker 1: smirge going to I mean, they really, uh, this has
Speaker 1: kind of been their obsession. Can I ask the dumb
Speaker 1: question that I should have asked at the beginning, Why
Speaker 1: couldn't they just fire him. Why couldn't they just get
Speaker 1: the board of directors exactly exactly? If that's what's so
Speaker 1: nuts about this whole thing is I think were they
Speaker 1: afraid of him? Did they think he still had too
Speaker 1: much power on the board? Right? How do you when
Speaker 1: you when you're sick of a CEO or sick of
Speaker 1: a chairman, and even if you think he's done something wrong,
Speaker 1: you fire him. Maybe you've maybe you you you file
Speaker 1: a civil suit, you try to clawback some money. Whatever.
Speaker 1: It's not that hard, it's not that hard. It speaks
Speaker 1: to either a particular mindset among the Japanese or the
Speaker 1: fact that there must have been a lot of hatred
Speaker 1: of going brewing in those in those ranks for a
Speaker 1: long time, or maybe both. I think I think there's
Speaker 1: a third aspect of that, though, which is the going
Speaker 1: back to the governance structure, which is that n don't forget,
Speaker 1: owned fifteen percent of Nissan, right, and so it had
Speaker 1: an automatic fifteen percent for gone on the board among
Speaker 1: sheer old as if you had to have a vote
Speaker 1: to get rid of him or not. And I think
Speaker 1: they may have also feared because he's Carlos gone, and
Speaker 1: he believes in the rightness of him his cause that
Speaker 1: he would have put up a huge proxy fight and
Speaker 1: may not have just you know, lied down and crawled away.
Speaker 1: And why does it shake out that he was so
Speaker 1: valuable for Nissan? Why why can't they just rise and
Speaker 1: conquer without him? Why was this a one man show
Speaker 1: twenty years ago? They needed a visionary? Yea, they truly did.
Speaker 1: And I think maybe part of his problem Carlos Gone,
Speaker 1: is that he didn't want to be surrounded by other
Speaker 1: people who were as smart as he was, or people
Speaker 1: who were in a position to take over. So his successor,
Speaker 1: who did turn on him, but who had who he
Speaker 1: had groomed, really turned out to be a very passive
Speaker 1: and not very good CEO. Um So I think part
Speaker 1: of the part of the problem was Gone was a visionary,
Speaker 1: but he, you know, he didn't. He didn't create a
Speaker 1: culture of people who wanted to carry on that vision.
Speaker 1: And those two don't necessarily go hand in hand, right,
Speaker 1: the visionary and the person who can create the culture, right,
Speaker 1: But in fact usually they are pretty diametrically opposed if
Speaker 1: you look at history. I think it's an interesting tangent
Speaker 1: to to to all of this So what happens now
Speaker 1: to Nissan and Andrenau assuming this nothing good? But how
Speaker 1: does how does this shake out? Well, um, you know,
Speaker 1: one of two things has to happen for the for
Speaker 1: the companies. You know, either they have to get together
Speaker 1: and agree. You know, by god, we got to make
Speaker 1: this alliance work. It saves us so much money. It'll
Speaker 1: be it'll be disaster if we try to break it up,
Speaker 1: and you know, let's just put our problems, let's put
Speaker 1: our squabbles aside and get back to get back to basics.
Speaker 1: Or they will break it up and it'll be short
Speaker 1: term disastrous and I don't know what it'll mean in
Speaker 1: the long term, they'll probably boths get bought and amid
Speaker 1: all the craziness in the global automotive industry, it's that
Speaker 1: this just adds to the moving chest places. It's a
Speaker 1: terrible time for this to be happening in the in
Speaker 1: the global auto industry, especially with you know, we're in
Speaker 1: such a time of fermat and when it's really it's unclear.
Speaker 1: It's clear that electric vehicles are going to be a
Speaker 1: big deal, but it's unclear how quickly that will come,
Speaker 1: and the automobile industry has to be ready to move
Speaker 1: if it does, and these two companies are just kind
Speaker 1: of mired in their troubles. And for Going, how do
Speaker 1: you think this shakes out? Well? Actually, before we get
Speaker 1: to him, do you think Japan ever brings charges against
Speaker 1: the people who helped him escape? Uh? If they can
Speaker 1: figure out who they are, well for sure. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: do think they'll bring charges that that. I hadn't thought
Speaker 1: about that before, but yeah, that's that would so there'll
Speaker 1: be another leg to this. Yes, and for Going, does
Speaker 1: he get tried somewhere? Can he live as a fugitive forever? Um?
Speaker 1: I think it's very unlikely that he'll ever be tried,
Speaker 1: you think really? Um? Yes, Right now, he's stuck in Lebanon.
Speaker 1: He can't leave, even if he wants to. He certainly
Speaker 1: can't leave to it for any country that has an
Speaker 1: extradition treaty with Japan, Interpol has a red dot with
Speaker 1: something out. You know, he's a wanted man worldwide thanks
Speaker 1: to Interpol. So he's he's in a different kind of prison,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's country wide. It's a country wide prison,
Speaker 1: but it's still a prison. He can't go anywhere. The
Speaker 1: Lebanese have actually taken his um, taken his passport away.
Speaker 1: So and oh, they've indicted his wife, so she can't
Speaker 1: go anywhere either. Japan has indicted his wife. Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: so they're stuck, but at least they're stuck together. They're
Speaker 1: stuck in a country that they're very familiar with. She's Lebanese.
Speaker 1: I think he's going to be spending the next couple
Speaker 1: of years, you know, writing a book, dealing with a movie,
Speaker 1: trying to and mostly trying to clear his name. He's
Speaker 1: got he's rich, but he's not rich like he used
Speaker 1: to be. This the this between the money he spent
Speaker 1: on his defense lawyers and the money he's spent escaping.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like in the in the tens of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. And you know, I haven't had a
Speaker 1: chance to point this out yet, but one of Gong's
Speaker 1: frustrations was that he was being paid like a European
Speaker 1: and a Japanese executive and not like an American executive.
Speaker 1: So he was making fifteen million or whatever, when you
Speaker 1: know in the US he'd been making forty million. So
Speaker 1: there's a global competitiveness issue to this too. Or I'm rich,
Speaker 1: but I'm not as rich as they are. A relativity
Speaker 1: aspect of this, someone call that jealousy. Someone just called
Speaker 1: that jealousy. That's probably a better word, right, So that's
Speaker 1: that's interesting. So Kenny, so does he get is this
Speaker 1: a form of hell in and of itself? Then? And
Speaker 1: that this is a guy who wasn't done with the world.
Speaker 1: But if he does end up ditching a trial and
Speaker 1: staying in Lebanon, the world is done with him at
Speaker 1: some point. I think that's right. He's obviously never going
Speaker 1: to run at an auto company again. The Japanese, unless
Speaker 1: Lebanon or France decides to try to negotiate some kind
Speaker 1: of truce with Japan over this. Japanese will never drop
Speaker 1: the charges. So it's really hard to see how this
Speaker 1: works out for him in a way that gives him
Speaker 1: the freedom to go to Davos, to go to the
Speaker 1: US to find another company to run, So in a
Speaker 1: weird way, regardless of what happens the Japanese one though,
Speaker 1: they may never see it that way. They'll never see
Speaker 1: it that way never. But yeah, he's stuck. He's stuck.
Speaker 1: On that note, Thank you so much. This is a
Speaker 1: really fun conversation, and I can't wait to see the movie.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see it either. And then, of
Speaker 1: course is the podcast. There's the podcast. There has to
Speaker 1: be a podcast. Thank you all so much for listening,
Speaker 1: Thank you Joe for coming, Thank you well. I for
Speaker 1: one can't wait to see this movie. Do you feel
Speaker 1: the same way. This story has everything money, power, the
Speaker 1: abuse of power, global intrigue, and there's an entire industry
Speaker 1: at stake. It seems to me that Carlos Gohen's time
Speaker 1: in a Japanese jail and his exile mean that he
Speaker 1: has and is going to continue to pay a price
Speaker 1: for whatever sins he has committed. Is it a high
Speaker 1: enough price? And will Renault and Nissans shareholders be the
Speaker 1: ones who ultimately pay more? Stay tuned. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening to season one of Making a Killing.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed it. Follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Bethany mac twelve for news about season two. Making a
Speaker 1: Killing is a co production of Pushkin Industries and Chalk
Speaker 1: and Blade. It's produced by Ruth Barnes and Laura Hyde.
Speaker 1: My executive producers are Alison mcclein. No relation in Making Casey,
Speaker 1: the executive producer at Pushkin is Mia Loebell. Engineering by
Speaker 1: Jason Rostkowski. Our music is by Jed Flood. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Jacob Weisberg at Pushkin and everyone on the show.
Speaker 1: I'm Bethany McLain. Thanks so much for listening. Find me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Bethany mac twelve and let me know
Speaker 1: which episodes you've most enjoyed.