Volkswagen ousts CEO Müller

The Volkswagen Group’s Supervisory Board today forced the resignation of its CEO and Chairman, Matthias Müller.

Müller, who was parachuted into the top chair just weeks after the Dieselgate scandal broke in September 2015, will be replaced by current Volkswagen brand head, Dr Herbert Diess as early as Friday.

The Volkswagen Group issued a statement suggesting that there were also other moves afoot, "associated with personnel changes in the board of management”.

Some of the other changes are believed to include the Group’s director of human resources, Karlheinz Blessing, and its director of communications, Heinz-Gert Bode.

Müller, 64, has been in charge of the Dieselgate clean-up for the Volkswagen Group, but it’s understood from senior sources at the company that its larger shareholders now consider the crisis period over and want a clean start to tackle the era of electrification.

The VW Group Supervisory Board has chosen to replace one senior engineer CEO with another, though Dr Diess has the distinct public advantage of having been on BMW’s board during the entire lifespan of Volkswagen's diesel emissions-cheating scandal’s development, validation and production periods.

The 59-year-old also has the advantage of doubling the brand’s notoriously low profit margins in just two years.

Dr Diess will move from running the Volkswagen brand, which delivered a record 1,525,300 cars and SUVs to customers in the first three months of this year, to being in charge of 12 brands, €231 billion in revenue and more than 600,000 employees.

He left BMW after losing out to Harald Krüger for the top job in Munich, but not before being credited with pushing and launching the electrified 'i' brand and slashing €4 billion from its supplier costs.

A PhD in mechanical engineering, he worked at Bosch early in his career before running its Spanish plant then moved to BMW.

As CEO of the 81-year-old Volkswagen Group, he will have to manage brands as diverse as Lamborghini and Bugatti and Seat and Skoda, plus Volkswagen Commercial and MAN and Scania trucks. The Group’s other brands include Audi, Porsche, Ducati and Bentley.

Dr Diess was seriously considered as a contender to replace the disgraced Dr Martin Winterkorn as the company’s most senior manager in September 2015, but he had only arrived from his position as BMW’s Director of Development two months earlier.

The Volkswagen Group’s comments were thin yesterday, however a statement said: “Mr Matthias Müller showed his general willingness to contribute to the changes.” There is also an implication that there will be changes to the governing Supervisory Board, controlled by the Porsche and Piech families.

Try as he did, Müller couldn’t successfully clear Volkswagen of the Dieselgate scandal, a point confirmed when it was uncovered in January that it had tested its diesel emissions on both monkeys and university students.