The automaker behind Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep vehicles just announced a $2.26 billion payout to its shareholders — less than two weeks after the company used President Donald Trump’s new auto tariffs to lay off nearly a thousand American workers.
On April 4, Stellantis, one of the country’s “Big Three” automakers, announced the temporary layoffs at five US factories and production pauses at facilities in Canada and Mexico. The Dutch conglomerate, which subsumed Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2021, told its employees it had “decided to take some immediate actions” in response to Trump’s sweeping tariffs, which included a 25 percent tax on auto imports.
“With the current path of painful tariffs and overly rigid regulations, the American and European car industries are being put at risk,” said John Elkann, chairman of Stellantis’s board of directors, at the company’s April 15 general assembly meeting.
But that risk wasn’t enough to stop shareholders at the meeting from voting to reward themselves with $2.26 billion in total dividend payments. Shareholders also voted to pause the company’s annual stock buyback program, which involved purchasing $3 billion in Stellantis stock last year to inflate asset prices for company investors and executives. This year’s dividend payout to investors alone accounts for roughly half of the company’s profits last year.
The United Auto Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain blasted the company’s decision: “Two weeks ago, Stellantis said the sky was falling because of auto tariffs, and said they had to lay off workers, claiming they are losing money. But then all of a sudden, a miracle happened: they found billions of dollars, nearly half of last year’s profits, to pay to Wall Street!”
In 2024, Stellantis’s $5 billion in profits amounted to a 70 percent drop from the previous year. But in 2023, Stellantis netted $20 billion, an 11 percent increase, making it the…
Auteur: Luke Goldstein
