Nissan’s board sacked Carlos Ghosn as chairman on Thursday, a spectacular fall from grace for the once-revered boss whose arrest for financial misconduct has stunned the business world, as France and Japan insisted they want the Nissan-Renault alliance to survive the scandal.
Ghosn, in jail since Monday, stands accused of under-reporting his income by millions of dollars and a host of other financial irregularities after an internal Nissan probe following a whistleblower report.
His ouster is an astonishing turnaround for a titan of the auto sector who revived the Japanese brand and forged an alliance with France’s Renault as well as domestic rival Mitsubishi Motors, which sold a combined 10.6 million cars last year — more than any other firm.
It also throws the future of the alliance into doubt as Ghosn was the architect of the far-flung partnership — which employs 450,000 people globally — and the glue holding it together.
