Ford chief executive Alan Mulally has said in a CNBC TV interview on Thursday that he had talked this week with General Motors’ chairman and chief executive Ed Whitacre.
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Mulally, recruited from Boeing three years ago, did not discuss details of his conversation with Whitacre who became chairman of GM in July and was named CEO on 1 December after the resignation of CEO Fritz Henderson, Reuters reported.
“Well, matter of fact, we did talk yesterday,” Mulally told Jim Cramer on CNBC. “He’s reaching out just the way that I did when I came in.”
“You want to be supportive because we have a lot of industry issues that we work together,” Mulally said of his conversation with Whitacre.
Mulally said he had talked with other industry executives, including former GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, when he joined Ford as an industry outsider in 2006.
In October, former federal government auto task force head Steve Rattner told Fortune magazine that Wagoner had cautioned the Obama administration against bringing in an outsider when it sought his resignation from GM, citing daily conversations Wagoner had with Mulally after the former Boeing executive joined Ford, Reuters noted.
“I don’t remember it that way,” Mulally was quoted as saying. “I will say that when I arrived I reached out to all of the industry insiders, including Rick, and Rick was very very supportive.”
Analysts have credited Mulally broadly for turning Ford around towards expected 2011 profit despite a downturn that has pushed US auto industry sales to the worst levels since the early 1980s.
