From Ted FullertonPresent May 16, 2025
At Volkswagen’s most recent virtual annual conference, the facade of the company unit began to crack, and showed a deeper putrefaction under the polished surface of the culture of Europe Car manufacturer. Share owner, tired and increasingly disillusioned, extremely devastating criticism of the company’s governance – a structure that has long been grasped by a dynastic elite, has dirty the bloodline and session room for a unique control of control.
At the center of the riots is Oliver Blume, who has the reins from both Volkswagen and Porsche AG – a concentration of power that denounces investors as a symbol for a system that is not designed for innovation or accountability, but for the preservation of privileges. The families in Porsche and Piech have almost absolute authority and rule with the impunity of the medieval landlords through their holding report about Volkswagen. It is not the market that prescribes the future of VW, critics say, but the unassailable grip of the inherited.
The market speaks, ignores the board
Shareholder voices, often subdued by the machines of public relations, rarely rose clarity. “Very problematic,” said one. “Grave damage to the call,” warned another. Behind her words is a deeper charges: a culture of secrecy, stagnation and self -help, which sacrifices a long -term vision for the short -term preservation of power. Since the VW share price drops by almost 25% in one year, its leadership pretends to be high costs and market conditions and refuses to confront the unpleasant truth: the company harms itself and lacks credible leadership in the transformative age of electrification and digitization.
A company that depends in a changing world
In China, in Europe, in the USA, VW – Haemorrhaging relevance and capital bleed. Nevertheless, the old guard clings to his fief. Wolfgang PorschePatriarch and Powerbroker, rejects the governance crisis as a distraction. The real problem insists that it lies elsewhere. However, this rejection is the license plate of all declining empires: a refusal to see that the fortress that you built for protection has become a prison.
The system in its current form is not sustainable. Power has replaced innovation. The control has replaced seeing. And if Volkswagen does not break out of the feudalism of his business past, he will continue his slow march in the direction of irrelevance – not only in the markets, but in importance.
