0:00

Thank you so much for downloading making a killing.

0:03

I'm Bethany McClain, and I'm cutting

0:05

through the noise to reframe the stories

0:07

you know and uncover the ones you

0:09

don't know. Truth

0:12

is stranger than fiction. I think

0:14

about that saying a lot, because it has the great

0:17

virtue of being well true,

0:19

and it's particularly true when it comes to the world

0:21

of business. I mean, from the financial

0:24

crisis to Bernie Madoff, you could not

0:26

make the stuff up even with

0:28

that high bar. The story of Carlos Gone

0:30

stands out. Gone, of course,

0:33

is the former head of Nissan Motor and

0:35

Renault. He is was

0:37

a revered figure in the automotive world.

0:40

In the fall of twenty eighteen, he

0:42

was jailed in Japan on charges of

0:44

financial misconduct. While he was out

0:47

on bail, he hatched an escape plan

0:49

that involved being smuggled out of the country,

0:52

escaping security by hiding in a large

0:54

black box, which, thank goodness, apparently

0:56

did have breathing holes cut in it. He's

0:59

now living in a pink mansion in Lebanon, a

1:01

pink mansion that Nissan had bought and

1:03

renovated for his use. I mean,

1:05

right, talk about truth being stranger

1:07

than fiction. So there are at least two sides

1:10

to this story. The official version, the

1:12

Japanese version, is that Gone stole

1:14

from Nissan, partly by paying himself

1:16

more than anyone, including investors new

1:19

Here's a surprise. Going denies those charges.

1:22

In his telling, Nissan's Japanese

1:24

executives wanted to be rid of him and

1:26

found a horrible way to do it. I

1:29

have not fled justice, I have escaped

1:31

injustice and political persecution,

1:34

Go and said in a statement after his escape.

1:37

For sure, Japan treat's white color

1:39

criminals very differently than the US does.

1:42

Among other things, Gone was held in

1:44

solitary confinement and interrogated

1:47

for eight hours a day. The conviction

1:49

rate is close to one. My

1:51

longtime friend Jonah Sarah wrote in a recent

1:54

Bloomberg piece that Gone thought to himself,

1:56

you are going to die in Japan if

1:59

you don't get out, So Gone

2:01

took matters into his own hands. Is

2:03

this justifiable or

2:05

is this a sign of the entitlement of the

2:07

global elite? And who is Carlos

2:10

Going an innocent man wrongly accused

2:13

or a common thief. I began

2:15

this season of making a killing with Joan Oh Sarah

2:18

talking about Jewel, So it seemed

2:20

fitting to end it with Joe, who wrote

2:22

this about Carlos going. When

2:24

you get right down to it, Nissan

2:26

and the Japanese prosecutors put a

2:28

rich, powerful man, a man unaccustomed

2:31

to being defied through hell. Now

2:34

that he has escaped, it's his turn

2:36

to put them through hell. I'm thrilled

2:38

to have Joe here to talk about what will surely

2:40

go down in history is one of the greatest

2:43

business stories ever. Certainly

2:45

one of the greatest escapes ever, that's for sure.

2:48

So how did he do it? Let's start with that. Well,

2:50

the best part about that as nobody yet

2:53

knows. There's only I mean, for

2:55

instance, you know, when

2:57

you think about it, if you make an

2:59

escape like that, you have to plan it for

3:01

months, right months?

3:04

How did he find the guy who planned

3:06

it? How did they how did they communicate

3:09

with each other? Well? Wait on that question, is it even

3:11

a guy who planned it or do we think it might have been his wife?

3:14

Oh? No, no, no, no, no, well I'm

3:16

pretty sure it wasn't his wife. No, there's a there's

3:18

a man who's a you

3:20

know, a former paramilitary type who

3:23

does security these kind of high

3:25

risk security Michael Taylor. Right,

3:27

Yes, that's right. His name is Michael Taylor. Thank you.

3:30

So how did Michael Taylor get in touched with

3:32

Carlos Gone? How did they plan

3:34

it so that Gone knew what to do and when to

3:36

do it? Um, it's obvious

3:39

that they had They had come

3:41

to Japan and they

3:43

were watching the people

3:46

who were watching Gone. So

3:48

there was a there was a camera that

3:50

watched them all the time, and there were people out Japanese

3:53

you know, security guards outside.

3:56

But they realized that there was a certain

3:58

week in the year when

4:00

the Japanese basically took the week off because

4:02

it was a you know, their high holidays, they're

4:05

big vacation time, and they

4:07

weren't there, and they

4:09

figured that out and they realized

4:11

that that was potentially the time to do it.

4:14

And so, you know, the first round

4:16

of rumors, who was I'm

4:18

so sorry it wasn't true, was that

4:20

he had he had hidden in a

4:22

in a in a musical instrument

4:24

case for like for a double base doesn't

4:31

but you know, it's kind of pretty amazing what

4:33

he did. He he walked out, he

4:35

put one of those masks around his face,

4:38

as many Japanese people do when their outdoors.

4:41

You know, he walked about a mile, he

4:43

walked into a hotel and then

4:45

he walked out to the other side of the hotel um

4:48

presumably not being followed, obviously not being

4:50

followed. And then he got on a train. Wow. And

4:52

he and he took like a three hour

4:54

train ride to Osaka. And once

4:57

he got there, that's when he

4:59

was met. This team of

5:01

people who put him in this big

5:03

black box, put

5:06

him on that line alone, this team of people who

5:08

put him in a big black box, righty, and they

5:10

put him on an airplane, a private airplane.

5:13

They didn't want to fly directly to Berute

5:15

because they were afraid that that would send up too many

5:17

signals. So there was an istanbol

5:20

right and then he had to get past you

5:23

know, customs, a second round of customs.

5:26

Having sneaked past the Japanese customs,

5:28

then he had to get past the Turkish customs. So we

5:30

went back in the black box. They

5:32

took him out of one airplane, put him in another airplane,

5:35

and he landed in Lebanon. And

5:37

Lebanon presumably he can't be

5:39

extradited. Well, Lebanon does not

5:42

have an extradition treaty with Japan. Also,

5:45

he is a Lebanese citizen among his

5:47

other citizenships. He is

5:49

a highly revered figure

5:51

in Lebanon. They even have a postage stamp named

5:53

after him. I mean, he's one of their few

5:56

kind of international businessman.

5:58

They don't have very many. And then

6:01

his wife met him also in Lebanon,

6:03

so she obviously knew what was going on. So she goes

6:05

to Lebanon. And then the hilarious

6:07

thing is he you know that this is one of the

6:09

houses that he

6:12

had refurbished, renovated

6:15

Nissons die. Now the question is whether

6:17

Nissan knew that or not. But he's

6:20

basically he's squatting in it, and

6:23

he's kind of daring Nissan to try and kick

6:25

him out. And is it true that it's pink? I don't know why

6:27

that details definitely think it's definitely. I've

6:29

seen it from the archide. But see, this is why I asked

6:31

the question about whether his wife was involved, because

6:34

his wife met him there, so she had to have known.

6:37

Yes, that's absolutely true. She had to have

6:39

known something for sure. But

6:42

don't forget that he had not been one

6:45

of the things that most upset him

6:47

during his ordeal. And I'm sure, we'll talk about

6:49

that ordeal in a bit is

6:51

that he is. Part of his bail,

6:55

he was not allowed to speak to his wife

6:58

at all, and his

7:01

children really, at least one of them couldn't

7:03

come to Japan because she was afraid she'd be arrested

7:05

too, So he didn't

7:07

have a lot of contact with his family. He Wanda

7:10

spoke speaking to his wife

7:12

twice with permission and with people

7:14

listening in. Once was around

7:16

Thanksgiving and once was around Christmas. We're

7:18

going to come back to the conditions of his bail and the

7:21

conditions of his treatment because it's important

7:23

both in the micro and interesting in the

7:25

macro. But what's really interesting

7:27

about this is we know the details of the

7:30

escape, but we have no clue how it

7:32

was planned. And listening to you talk

7:34

about the monitoring of his conversations with

7:36

his wife, how did he manage to have communication

7:39

with the people who helped him escape if

7:41

everything he said was being monitored.

7:44

When he was in the home that he

7:46

was using in Japan in Tokyo,

7:48

he was not allowed to have any electronics,

7:51

no internet, no television, no

7:53

nothing. But when he but

7:55

during the day he was allowed to go to his lawyer's

7:58

office where he did to have access

8:00

to a computer and did meet

8:03

with people, and he didn't meet people were allowed

8:05

to come and meet with him. So presumably

8:07

that's how it was done in person

8:10

or possibly over the internet,

8:12

when he was at his lawyer's office.

8:15

Although his lawyers says he knows nothing, I'm not sure

8:17

his lawyer didn't know nothing. I'm sure his lawyer.

8:20

Jampan is a country where face

8:22

matters so much, yep. And

8:25

he humiliated his lawyers by doing

8:27

this. His lawyers had vouched for him, and

8:30

his lawyers were trying to show through

8:33

his trial that a

8:36

Westerner could

8:38

get a fair trial. That was their goal. And

8:41

you know, they one of the very

8:44

tiny handful of big time defense

8:46

attorneys. I mean in the US they're all over the place, but

8:48

in Japan they're very rare. And this

8:50

was a moment for these lawyers to

8:53

try and make the case that Japan

8:56

could treat a Westerner fairly. I just

8:58

wanted to pause on this note, for it was from the Wall Street

9:00

Journal and they wrote that the planning involved

9:02

a team of between ten and fifteen people

9:04

of different nationalities, and that in

9:07

all the team took more than twenty trips to Japan

9:09

and visited at least ten Japanese airports

9:11

before selecting the Osaka Airport

9:13

as a week link. I mean, it's a stunning

9:16

degree of coordination. Right before

9:18

we move on from this, Michael Taylor,

9:20

this operative who helped Going. He's

9:22

a story in his own right, isn't he? He

9:24

is He's done this a few times before. He's actually

9:27

been in prison for something, um,

9:29

you know, and and yes he

9:32

when when the when the film gets

9:34

made, Michael Taylor will have a

9:37

starring role forre. You can just see that

9:39

this is everything about this is cinematic,

9:41

right right, get right down to the black boxman. In fact,

9:43

where's rumors? Wall Street Journal pointed a rumor

9:46

that, uh, Carlos Gone

9:48

was already in negotiations with Netflix, but

9:50

he denied it. He denied it, So

9:53

tell tell me more about who Carlos Gone

9:55

is. For people who don't, who haven't followed

9:58

the craziness in the automotive industry,

10:00

one way to think about it, Carlos Gone is the Lee

10:02

Iacocca of the modern era, the

10:05

larger than life auto

10:08

exac who performs

10:10

miracles and does is that

10:13

is that real? To some degree? It is, yes,

10:15

So he's hard, is what happened.

10:17

Carlos Gone was the CEO

10:20

and chairman of Renault, a French

10:22

company. Ye, Nissan

10:25

is in terrible, terrible trouble, and

10:27

so they go to him and they ask

10:29

him to what could he do to

10:32

help them? So what he does

10:34

is he sets up It's

10:36

not a merger, it's an alliance. They

10:39

remain separate companies, but

10:42

they do things like they buy

10:44

supplies together, and they do

10:46

some back office things that save money,

10:48

and they coordinate in various

10:50

ways. They actually even for a long

10:53

time split up territories. So like Nissan

10:56

was big in the US, Renault

10:58

was big in Europe. They both went to

11:00

China and you

11:03

know, I said he was Lee a Coca. A

11:05

better phrase might be he

11:07

was the Marshal Tito of the of the auto

11:09

business. Because what you had was you had

11:12

this very French culture Renault,

11:14

this extremely Japanese culture

11:17

Nissan, and you had this one

11:19

guy who somehow managed

11:22

to ride herd over

11:24

all of it. So then Nissan

11:27

didn't. He did turn Nissan around.

11:29

I mean it was really quite dramatic,

11:32

to the point where Nissan became the

11:34

stronger of the two. Companies and Renault

11:37

became the weaker, but because

11:39

of the way the alliance was structured, Renault

11:43

owned more of Nissan, like fifteen

11:45

percent. Then Nissan owned a Renault which

11:47

was five percent. So one of the things,

11:49

one of them that began to upset

11:52

the Japanese not the only thing, but one of

11:54

the things was that Renault,

11:56

which had become the weaker company, still

12:00

add the stronger position on the board

12:02

and in terms of stock ownership,

12:05

and so do you credit do most

12:07

people credit Nissan's ability

12:09

to thrive to Carlos Scone and he

12:12

is he that guy who was able to pull these

12:14

companies through an incredibly troubled and difficult

12:16

time in the automotive industry globally, Most

12:19

people do give him that credit. Yes, he's

12:21

viewed as as a as a as a

12:23

true giant of the AutoWorld,

12:26

to the point where as he as he noted

12:28

during his flamboyant press conference,

12:30

once he escaped. You know, Steve

12:32

Rattner approached him during the

12:34

financial crisis when he was the autos

12:37

Are Obama's artos Are and asked

12:39

him if he would be willing to

12:42

come in and take over General Motors.

12:44

Wow, Okay, so this guy, he doesn't lack

12:46

for ego either. So well,

12:49

I do have to say, yes, if you've if you've

12:51

been around CEOs,

12:54

there's a certain type, you

12:56

know, larger than life, totally

12:59

convinced they're right about everything. Sometimes

13:02

they're all never in doubt, exactly exactly.

13:04

Um but really, um kind

13:06

of aggressive he was? He

13:09

is was all of those things. Um

13:12

uh. And yeah, you could sort of see

13:15

how he would drive the Japanese mad. And

13:17

before we come back to that, wasn't he trying to do something

13:19

with fat and Chrysler? He was trying to pull off

13:22

yet another coup, right, Yes he was.

13:24

He had already um brought me

13:26

to Beish into the alliance. Okay,

13:28

Um, he was, you know, maneuvering

13:31

to bring other people into other companies

13:33

into the alliance. But the big issue really really

13:36

for Nissan was they felt

13:38

that he was going to not

13:41

just have an alliance, but he

13:43

was going to merge Nissan and Renault

13:46

and they were dead set against that. And why

13:48

because they perceived Nissan is a stronger company,

13:50

or because of Japanese pride and Nissan

13:52

not wanting to see it submerged or subsumed

13:55

into Renauld. Both is the answer. Um,

13:58

you know they're they're you know, the Pese. There

14:00

were xenophobic people, without question,

14:02

and um uh, there

14:05

were a lot of tensions within the alliance

14:07

even you know, before this this

14:09

came up, the idea of a merger, and

14:12

yes, Nissan felt like, we're the king of the

14:14

hill. Now, why should we stoop to

14:16

help, you know, struggling we're

14:18

now. Yeah, I just saw this note in

14:21

here that six years after after after

14:23

Gone took the top job, Nissan had surpassed

14:25

Honda to become Japan's number two automaker.

14:28

It's market capitalization had quintupled

14:30

and its operating margin had risen tenfold.

14:32

So that I mean, as

14:34

I and in the modern world, that's

14:36

how you become a legend. Yeah, I guess that's true.

14:39

So were there any whispers about him up

14:41

until the fall of twenty eighteen? Was there

14:43

any talk that this guy was

14:46

somehow overstepping some kind of bounds

14:48

or was the fall of twenty and eighteen, when it all exploded

14:50

out of seemingly nowhere, there was not

14:53

so much as a whisper in

14:56

terms of, you know, whether people

14:58

thought he was doing things on the fly or

15:00

on the side, or or or playing

15:02

tricks or playing games. It was one

15:05

of the things that were so

15:07

shocking about this story is it's

15:09

it's it's as if Mary Barra flew

15:13

to Canada and was was

15:15

was arrested for you know,

15:17

uh, stealing from General Motors. That's how

15:19

kind of shocking this was. And

15:22

the way they did it, you know, um,

15:25

the Japanese Nissan executives

15:28

who were plotting this with prosecutors

15:30

and that that is why. Oh

15:33

yes, there's no question about that. Um,

15:37

you know. They they they tricked Goons

15:41

former number two into

15:43

flying back to Japan, which

15:45

he had not done in three years

15:48

and was awaiting back surgery. Wow,

15:50

they tricked him. An old friend

15:52

of his from Nissan called him and said,

15:55

hey, we really need to hear for this meeting.

15:57

We really come on, We'll send the private plane

16:00

and they did, and he lands and he gets

16:02

arrested, and then gone

16:04

has no idea this is coming. He lands and

16:07

he gets arrested, and that's where they find

16:09

out, and that's where the world finds out that

16:11

there are these allegations against him. Truth

16:13

is stranger than fiction, indeed, right, it's

16:15

it's it's it's an astonishing story.

16:19

One of the problems with trying

16:21

to grapple with the story is that it's

16:24

really hard to know even

16:26

now who's telling the truth.

16:29

Why is it so hard to know? His compensation

16:32

was public? Right? These were public companies,

16:34

and so what was disclosed is

16:37

knowable and what he took is knowable. Where

16:40

does the complexity come in? Okay?

16:42

Maybe pause first on what the charges against him. So

16:45

there's a couple of things. The first charge is

16:48

that he hid compensation

16:50

from Nissan and

16:53

the board. This seems frankly

16:56

pretty unlikely, although he did settle

16:58

with the sec for small,

17:01

by his terms, a small amount

17:04

of money, um without

17:06

uh, you know, denying. Was

17:08

it affirming or denying the charges? Yes,

17:11

but the exact language was that they he

17:13

settled charges that that he and

17:15

Nissan had failed to disclose more than one hundred and

17:17

forty million in compensation and benefits due

17:19

to be paid to him in retirement. Right, So that hundred

17:22

So that one hundred and forty million is

17:24

a big is a big sticking point. So

17:27

he and his former number two, his

17:29

name is Greg Kelly, they say

17:31

there was they had not

17:34

signed off on the deal yet, that

17:36

that they had they had sketched it out

17:38

along with some Nissan executives. They

17:41

had all sketched it out together, but

17:43

there was no uh guarantee

17:46

it was going to happen. It had not been um

17:48

uh, it had not been certified, had not been approved

17:51

by the board, and so they say there's

17:54

no there there. Nissan says,

17:56

you know, this was that you were doing this behind

17:59

our back, and in so doing

18:01

you were violating the Japanese law. Okay,

18:03

So that's number one. Number

18:05

two the second set

18:08

of charges was that he was, you

18:10

know, an effect laundering,

18:13

laundering Nissan's money to put it in his pocket.

18:15

So the big example of that that when

18:17

they he uses is um

18:22

that there was a dealer

18:24

in the Middle East and Nissan

18:26

paid this dealer millions of dollars

18:29

and then, according to Nissan, the dealer

18:31

somehow funneled that back some

18:34

of that back to Carlos

18:36

Gone. Gone says

18:38

it was all on the up and up, that

18:41

the money that was spent to this Midias dealer,

18:44

who he acknowledges was a friend, was

18:47

not unlike any you know, up

18:49

front incentives to any dealer. So

18:52

he says, you know, that was on the up and up,

18:54

and then the third sort of set of

18:56

charges. Um, it's

18:59

really more like Dennis Kozlowski's

19:02

uh six thousand dollars curtain

19:04

shower curtain. Yes, that's right, it's

19:06

more like that, which was not illegal,

19:09

right, but it was a waste

19:11

of corporate assets. And so

19:13

he had these houses, you know, literally

19:16

like five houses that were all renovated

19:19

for him on Nissan's dime, all supposedly

19:22

owned by Nissan. His kids all

19:24

went to Stanford on Nissan's dime. His

19:26

kids cut and went to Stanford on Nissan's dime. Well,

19:29

but I want to figure out how to work that one that

19:31

that you really I mean he had that in his

19:33

contract, okay, but they would pay for it.

19:35

And then the famous, most famous of

19:37

all, the birthday party for

19:39

his wife and Versailles Marie Antoinette

19:42

teamed right yes, and then he goes at

19:44

the press conference he gave, he

19:46

really went off on that. It's like, we've

19:49

spent so much money helping Versailles,

19:51

making Rascaille great, Versaids the place everybody

19:54

wants to go. Rasaide's good for our customers,

19:56

it's good for our you know, ad agencies.

19:59

Da da da da da da dada so he somehow argue,

20:01

we're defensive about at Versailles. I

20:03

think that every any single other thing

20:06

that he spoke about. So he somehow argues

20:08

that hosting a Marie Antoinette themed birthday

20:11

party for his wife at Versailles was beneficial

20:13

to Nissan's brand pretty much. But I don't

20:15

I don't know that it was Marie Antoinette. Okay,

20:18

I've read that somewhere that might

20:20

that might that might be like that, like the musical instrument

20:22

case right, too good to be true? Um

20:25

So, so what does Renault say about all of this,

20:27

because they you would think they would have a view too.

20:29

Are they on Nissan's site or are they going no

20:33

is uh Arna

20:35

doesn't know what to do, to be honest.

20:38

Um Nau's main concern,

20:41

especially at the beginning, was

20:43

to shore

20:46

up the alliance and not let the alliance

20:48

fall apart. For the

20:50

most part, that is a losing battle because

20:52

without going at the top, the culture

20:55

classes have gotten worse and worse. The board

20:57

disagreements have gotten worse and worse.

21:00

And I do have to wonder whether whether the

21:02

alliance can survive or not, which it will be really

21:04

bad for a no UM in

21:07

terms of in terms of Carlos

21:09

Gone, they have sort

21:11

of been tiptoeing towards the idea

21:14

that maybe there was some wrongdoing, but

21:17

they haven't. They

21:19

haven't really come out and laid

21:22

out a set of allegations the way

21:24

Nissan did. Okay, so it's still unclear.

21:26

I mean, it's really

21:28

complicated for the French because France

21:31

is in a very anti elitist mood right

21:33

now. Makran, the

21:36

president is viewed as an elitist,

21:39

Carlos Gone is viewed as an elitist. In

21:41

a different era, it's quite possible

21:44

the French would have gone,

21:46

you know, to great Lance to spring

21:48

him from prison, but

21:50

not today. But not today, they just kind of

21:53

kept their mouth shut and really didn't hasn't

21:55

done much of anything, great Kelly, what's happened

21:57

to him? Um? Nothing so

21:59

far are which he's still in jail and no, no,

22:01

no, no, no. He was. He was

22:04

out on bail just as Carlos Gohne

22:06

was awaiting his trial, just as Carlos

22:08

Gone was. Um.

22:10

There was some fear that he would be thrown back

22:12

in jail as as kind of punishment or

22:15

revenge for gons escape. But that

22:17

does not appear to have happened, and

22:19

um, you know, on

22:22

the one hand, this

22:24

is kind of rough for him because obviously he's

22:26

not gonna he's not gonna get out of Japan anytime

22:29

soon. But on the other hand, this

22:31

doubles the

22:34

The Japanese are going to have a really hard

22:36

time saying this guy should go to jail for twenty

22:38

years when the ring leader quote unquote

22:41

has escaped Lebanon, So that

22:43

actually may work out for him. So back to this

22:45

point about how Carlos Gone was treated

22:48

in prison. Tell us about the conditions

22:50

first of all. Okay, so let me begin

22:52

by saying that there's a there's a

22:55

phrase for how the Japanese

22:57

deal with people are accusing

22:59

of crimes. It's called hostage justice. And

23:02

the idea is that the Japanese

23:05

are not looking for evidence,

23:07

They're looking for confessions.

23:10

And that's the way the system works. And

23:13

so and that's why they have a ninety nine

23:15

conviction rate because most of the time when they

23:17

go to court, the persons confessed.

23:20

And the way they get do you confess is you

23:23

know, um eleven

23:25

and twelve hours of interrogation a

23:28

day, uh no lawyer present

23:31

um lights on twenty

23:33

four seven. Um, you

23:35

know, your room is constantly cold, your your

23:37

cell is constantly cold. Um.

23:40

There's various other forms of you

23:43

know, what you might call benign torture. In other

23:45

words, they're not physically beating him, but they're

23:47

making his life completely utterly miserable.

23:50

And then the way the system works is that, Um,

23:53

after twenty three days,

23:58

they have to either let him out on bail or

24:01

come up with new charges. And so

24:03

what they did constantly was they would,

24:06

you know, wait till the last minute, and

24:08

just as he was about to be sprung from bail,

24:10

they throw in new charges. So

24:12

we wound up spending a total of one hundred and some

24:14

odd days in prison, you know, under

24:17

these conditions, under these interrogation conditions,

24:19

and they're always saying to him, you know, if you ever

24:21

want to see your wife again, you better confess.

24:24

You know, we're going to make this much worse for you

24:26

if you don't confess. It's it's it's just like you

24:28

know, what you would think and think would not go on in Russia

24:30

or China. And the fact that he didn't confess suggests

24:33

either that he believes himself to be

24:35

innocent or that he's really

24:38

tough, well, son of a bit, I think

24:40

it takes a lot to resist that. Yeah,

24:43

I would think so too. So is

24:45

there just to play devil's advocate? And I'm

24:47

not arguing that people necessarily

24:49

should be treated like Carloscone does. But

24:51

is there any argument that in a world where many

24:54

people here feel we go too easy on white

24:56

color criminals and that people who

24:58

do damage, but

25:00

our white collar criminals get far lighter

25:02

treatment than those who are, for instance,

25:04

in possession of marijuana, and so is there

25:07

is there any argument that that might deter the

25:09

sort of happenings that we see in

25:11

the US from the financial crisis to en Rondo Thranis

25:13

well. I mean, I would never argue

25:16

that white collar criminals should be denied

25:19

new process and should be and confessions

25:21

should be tried to be forced out of them. I would

25:23

never argue that. To me, the issue

25:26

is in the US that

25:29

we don't our prosecutors have lost

25:31

the nerve to indict

25:35

white collar criminals, and that they

25:37

and the courts, you know, various

25:40

rulings in court have

25:43

made it more difficult to bring white

25:45

collar prosecutions. That's

25:48

a lot different from

25:51

from what happens in Japan. And really the

25:54

outrage about what happened in Japan really

25:56

had less to do with whether or not Carlos

25:59

Gone had committed a crime than

26:02

this kind of a

26:05

new insight that, oh my god,

26:07

look how their justice system operates.

26:10

Right, It's like what Western

26:13

country. I mean, it's not a Western

26:15

country, but they have Western principles. What

26:17

Western country treats prisoners

26:20

like this treats and treats someone not even a prisoner,

26:23

someone who's just been accused without even being

26:25

found guilty in that way. Right. And so

26:27

here's the other thing I was

26:29

thinking about this is that, you

26:31

know, one of the things

26:33

that happened is that Greg Kelly gave

26:35

an interview at some point to a

26:37

Japanese newspaper, and he made a series

26:40

of accusations about the top people at

26:42

Nissan, the very people who had

26:44

plotted against him and Carlos Scone.

26:47

Wow, and what did he say? He said

26:49

that they had padded their salaries

26:51

and that they had done things. They

26:53

had done the exact same sort of things that

26:55

they were accusing Carlos Scone of doing. And say that again,

26:58

when did he give this interview before or after he was

27:00

arrested. Oh no, well, okay,

27:02

I think it might have been this past summer. Okay,

27:04

But anyway, that the upshot was that

27:09

the CEO had to resign, that

27:12

the other people involved had to resign, that

27:14

they had to pay back some of the money. They were guilty

27:17

and they admitted it, but they got slaps on the risk

27:19

because it was apparently in the interest of Nissan

27:21

that they did this. No, they got slaps on the risk because

27:23

they're Japanese. That's interesting.

27:26

So in other words, even that system of laws

27:28

that it's in the company's interest or against the

27:30

company's interest doesn't really apply. It

27:32

also depends on who you are, right Well, in

27:34

this particular case, that was compounded

27:37

by the fact that they didn't want to put

27:40

the people who were accusing Carlo's gone

27:42

in prison because that were completely undercut

27:44

their ability to prosecute it.

27:46

So is it just a completely ridiculous idea

27:48

that the justice system should function the same way

27:51

for everyone, regardless of who they are.

27:54

You look, that's not a ridiculous thing. But you

27:56

know, that's not how the world works. I mean, it just isn't.

27:58

Well, that's one of the larger implications of this story.

28:00

Isn't it that that's just not how the world works.

28:03

Well, it's the larger implication of the Eptein

28:05

story. It was, until very recently, the larger

28:07

implication of the Harvey Weinstein story. I mean,

28:09

it's the larger implication of

28:11

the financial crisis story. I mean, you're,

28:14

you know, rich people

28:17

get get top

28:19

top lawyers, and they can put pressure on that

28:21

other people can't. I mean, Carlos

28:24

Gone didn't have that going

28:27

for him, which is part of why he is, which

28:29

is a large part of why he decided he had to escape

28:31

because he had he had no he had no swag

28:33

in Japan. So are you pro or con

28:36

his escape? I mean, would you say that he

28:38

saw a set of rules that he thought were

28:40

unfair and so he used all the

28:42

resources he could marshal to flee that set

28:44

of rules and find a different set because

28:46

he could. Or do you think he should

28:49

have stayed to face the music in Japan because

28:51

that's their system of rules, and that's

28:53

I don't know what you do. I agree

28:55

that he would not have gotten a

28:57

fair trial in Japan,

29:00

and I also believe that he was fundamentally

29:02

kidnapped and so escaping

29:05

for kidnappers, even though it's a government seems

29:08

okay to me. On the other hand, I really

29:10

do understand those who say, you

29:13

know, just because you're rich, you shouldn't get to decide

29:16

what jurisdiction, you know, you

29:18

get prosecuted in. Right, isn't the essential

29:20

problem with our world the fact that people who

29:22

don't have to follow the rules, that people who

29:24

can pay not to follow the rules can pay not to follow

29:27

them right where every video else has to. That's

29:29

exactly. And you know, you

29:32

have to be very rich to pull off what he pulled

29:34

off. So before we before we come back to how this

29:36

all plays out, what does it mean for Nissan and renew

29:39

Nothing good? Nothing good for Nissan either,

29:42

No, no Nissan. If you look at Nissan's stock,

29:44

it's just tumbled since

29:47

he since this happened, Renee

29:50

Reneau remains a very troubled

29:52

company. You know, we're in a glot

29:55

of autos right now. Neither

29:58

company is doing all that well. China.

30:01

Nissan's working really hard

30:04

to uh, you

30:06

know, move to electric vehicles. They have

30:09

some. They have the Leaf, which is a fairly popular

30:11

model. Um, but you

30:14

know, the range of the Leaf doesn't even come close

30:16

to a Tesla, and um,

30:19

you know, I think this is a bet that's so far

30:21

not particularly working well for them. You

30:23

wrote this, which is great. Going has been

30:25

an awful distraction for Nissan, which has

30:27

costed dearly. With Going now free to defend

30:29

himself and to hurl his own allegations

30:31

at the company, it's only going to get worse. At

30:33

this point. Nissan couldn't call a truce even even

30:36

if it wanted to, and it can't win either. Nissan

30:38

has to decide whether it is more interested in pursuing

30:41

Going or fixing what's wrong with the company. It has

30:43

already proved that it can't do both. Well.

30:45

I think that's true. I think that's absolutely true. Of course I

30:47

did write that, so of course you better think it's true.

30:49

Right, But you know, think about it. Nissan

30:52

has spent so much of the past year

30:54

and a half just trying

30:56

to you know, leak

30:59

to the press and do

31:01

this and do that, to to throw

31:03

these allegations out, to to

31:05

to be smirge going to I

31:08

mean, they really, uh, this has

31:10

kind of been their obsession. Can

31:12

I ask the dumb question that I should have asked at the beginning,

31:14

Why couldn't they just fire him. Why couldn't they just get

31:16

the board of directors exactly exactly?

31:20

If that's what's so nuts about

31:22

this whole thing is I think were they afraid

31:25

of him? Did they think he still had too much power

31:27

on the board? Right?

31:29

How do you when you when you're sick of

31:31

a CEO or sick of a chairman,

31:34

and even if you think he's done something wrong,

31:36

you fire him. Maybe you've maybe you

31:39

you you file a civil

31:41

suit, you try to clawback some money.

31:43

Whatever. It's

31:45

not that hard, it's not that hard. It speaks

31:48

to either a particular mindset

31:50

among the Japanese or the fact that there must have

31:52

been a lot of hatred of going brewing

31:54

in those in those ranks for a long time,

31:56

or maybe both. I think I think there's a third

31:58

aspect of that, though, which is the going

32:01

back to the governance

32:03

structure, which is that n don't

32:05

forget, owned fifteen percent of Nissan,

32:08

right, and so it had an automatic

32:10

fifteen percent for gone

32:12

on the board among sheer

32:15

old as if you had to have a vote to get

32:17

rid of him or not. And I think they may have also

32:19

feared because he's Carlos gone,

32:21

and he believes in the

32:23

rightness of him his cause that

32:26

he would have put up a huge proxy fight and

32:29

may not have just you know,

32:31

lied down and crawled away. And

32:33

why does it shake out that he was so

32:35

valuable for Nissan? Why why can't

32:37

they just rise and conquer without

32:40

him? Why was this a one man show twenty

32:42

years ago? They needed a visionary? Yea,

32:44

they truly did. And

32:46

I think maybe part of his problem Carlos

32:49

Gone, is that he didn't want to be surrounded

32:51

by other people who were as smart as he

32:53

was, or people who were in a position

32:55

to take over. So his

32:58

successor, who

33:00

did turn on him, but who had who

33:02

he had groomed, really turned out

33:04

to be a very passive and

33:07

not very good CEO. Um

33:09

So I think part of the part of the problem

33:11

was Gone

33:14

was a visionary, but he, you know, he

33:17

didn't. He didn't create

33:19

a culture of people

33:22

who wanted to carry on that vision. And

33:24

those two don't necessarily go hand in hand,

33:26

right, the visionary and the person who can create the

33:28

culture, right, But in fact usually

33:30

they are pretty diametrically opposed if you look

33:33

at history. I think it's an interesting tangent

33:35

to to to all of this So what happens

33:37

now to Nissan and Andrenau

33:40

assuming this nothing good? But how

33:42

does how does this shake out? Well,

33:45

um, you

33:48

know, one of two things has to happen for

33:50

the for the companies. You know, either

33:53

they have to get together and agree. You know, by

33:55

god, we got to make this alliance work. It saves

33:57

us so much money. It'll be it'll

33:59

be disaster if we try to break it up, and

34:03

you know, let's just put our problems, let's

34:05

put our squabbles aside and

34:07

get back to get back to basics. Or

34:10

they will break it up and it'll

34:13

be short term disastrous and I

34:15

don't know what it'll mean in the long term, they'll probably boths

34:17

get bought and amid all the craziness

34:20

in the global automotive industry, it's that this just

34:22

adds to the moving chest places. It's

34:24

a terrible time for this to be happening

34:26

in the in the global auto industry, especially

34:29

with you know, we're in such

34:32

a time of fermat and when

34:34

it's really it's unclear. It's clear

34:37

that electric vehicles are going to be a

34:39

big deal, but it's unclear how quickly

34:41

that will come, and the

34:44

automobile industry has to be ready to

34:46

move if it does, and these

34:49

two companies are just kind of mired in their

34:51

troubles. And for Going, how do

34:53

you think this shakes out? Well? Actually, before we get to

34:55

him, do you think Japan ever brings charges against

34:58

the people who helped him escape?

35:01

Uh? If they can figure out who they

35:03

are, well for sure.

35:05

Yeah, I do think they'll bring charges that

35:08

that. I hadn't thought about that before, but yeah,

35:10

that's that would so there'll be another leg to this.

35:12

Yes, and for Going, does he get tried somewhere?

35:14

Can he live as a fugitive forever? Um?

35:17

I think it's very unlikely that he'll ever

35:19

be tried, you think really? Um?

35:23

Yes, Right now, he's stuck

35:25

in Lebanon. He can't leave, even if

35:27

he wants to. He certainly can't leave to it for

35:29

any country that has an extradition

35:32

treaty with Japan, Interpol

35:34

has a red

35:36

dot with something out. You know, he's

35:40

a wanted man worldwide

35:42

thanks to Interpol. So

35:45

he's he's in a different kind of prison,

35:48

you know, it's it's country wide. It's a country

35:50

wide prison, but it's still a prison. He

35:52

can't go anywhere. The Lebanese have actually taken

35:55

his um, taken his passport

35:57

away. So and

35:59

oh, they've indicted his wife, so she

36:01

can't go anywhere either. Japan has indicted his

36:03

wife. Wow, Okay, so they're

36:05

stuck, but at least they're stuck together. They're

36:09

stuck in a country that they're very familiar with. She's

36:12

Lebanese. I think he's going to be spending

36:14

the next couple of years, you know, writing

36:16

a book, dealing with a movie, trying

36:19

to and mostly trying to clear his

36:21

name. He's got he's

36:24

rich, but he's not rich like he used

36:26

to be. This the this

36:29

between the money he spent on his defense lawyers

36:31

and the money he's spent escaping. I mean,

36:34

it's like in the in the tens of millions

36:36

of dollars. And you know, I

36:38

haven't had a chance to point this out yet, but

36:41

one of Gong's frustrations

36:44

was that he was being paid like a

36:46

European and a Japanese executive

36:49

and not like an American executive. So

36:52

he was making fifteen million

36:55

or whatever, when you know in

36:57

the US he'd been making forty million. So

37:00

there's a global competitiveness issue

37:02

to this too. Or I'm rich, but I'm not as

37:04

rich as they are. A relativity aspect of

37:06

this, someone call that jealousy.

37:09

Someone just called that jealousy. That's probably a better

37:11

word, right, So

37:13

that's that's interesting. So Kenny,

37:15

so does he get is this a form of hell in

37:18

and of itself? Then? And that this is a guy who wasn't

37:20

done with the world. But if he does end

37:22

up ditching a trial and staying in Lebanon,

37:24

the world is done with him at some point. I think

37:27

that's right. He's obviously never going to run

37:29

at an auto company again. The

37:31

Japanese, unless Lebanon

37:35

or France decides

37:37

to try to negotiate some kind of truce with

37:39

Japan over this. Japanese

37:42

will never drop the charges. So

37:46

it's really hard to see

37:48

how this works

37:51

out for him in a way that gives

37:53

him the freedom to go

37:55

to Davos, to go to the US

37:58

to find another company to run, So

38:00

in a weird way, regardless of what happens

38:03

the Japanese one though, they may never see

38:05

it that way. They'll never see it that way never.

38:08

But yeah, he's stuck. He's stuck.

38:11

On that note, Thank you so much. This is

38:13

a really fun conversation, and I can't wait to see

38:16

the movie. I can't wait to see

38:18

it either. And then, of course is

38:20

the podcast. There's the podcast.

38:22

There has to be a podcast. Thank

38:25

you all so much for listening, Thank you Joe for coming,

38:28

Thank you well.

38:30

I for one can't wait to see this movie.

38:33

Do you feel the same way. This story

38:35

has everything money, power,

38:38

the abuse of power, global

38:40

intrigue, and there's an entire industry

38:43

at stake. It seems to me that Carlos

38:45

Gohen's time in a Japanese jail and his

38:47

exile mean that he has and is

38:49

going to continue to pay a price for

38:51

whatever sins he has committed. Is it

38:54

a high enough price? And will Renault

38:56

and Nissans shareholders be the ones who ultimately

38:58

pay more? Stay tuned.

39:02

Thank you so much for listening to season one

39:04

of Making a Killing. I hope you've enjoyed it.

39:06

Follow me on Twitter at Bethany mac twelve

39:09

for news about season two. Making

39:12

a Killing is a co production of Pushkin Industries

39:14

and Chalk and Blade. It's produced

39:16

by Ruth Barnes and Laura Hyde. My

39:19

executive producers are Alison mcclein.

39:21

No relation in Making Casey, the

39:24

executive producer at Pushkin is Mia Loebell.

39:27

Engineering by Jason Rostkowski.

39:30

Our music is by Jed Flood. Special

39:33

thanks to Jacob Weisberg at Pushkin

39:35

and everyone on the show. I'm Bethany

39:37

McLain. Thanks so much for listening. Find

39:39

me on Twitter at Bethany mac twelve

39:42

and let me know which episodes you've most enjoyed.