Entering Shareholder Meeting, Toyota Chair Faces Swell of Scandals
WASHINGTON — Amidst a wave of controversy, Akio Toyoda will today ask Toyota Motor Corp. investors to reappoint him as chairman of the board of directors. The 70-year-old Toyoda, who has been polarizing for his dogged anti-climate lobbying and opposition to electric vehicles, admitted last week that his “biggest fear” is “everybody is shifting to BEVs” and “it seems to me I am the only one [opposed to electrification]. I feel very alone.”
“Toyoda is right to worry,” said Adam Zuckerman, senior clean vehicles campaigner with Public Citizen’s Climate Program. “He just admitted to investors and the public that he has risked Toyota’s future because he likes the smell of gasoline and the sound of engines. He is not a serious leader. If he stays behind the wheel, Toyota will be left in the dust as its competitors speed ahead toward a clean vehicle future.”
Last week’s eyebrow-raising interview was just the latest in a string of controversies that have followed Toyoda and the automaker since last year’s shareholder meeting. They include the following:
- Toyoda faced a revolt over his attempt to lowball investors in the multi-billion dollar acquisition of Toyota Industries Corporation (TICO). That builds on a governance crisis that has shadowed Toyoda’s tenure.
- In November, Chairman Toyoda wore a Trump-Vance t-shirt and a MAGA hat at a NASCAR-themed race in Japan. That is despite a poll showing 75% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats who own Toyotas believe that the company should support stronger emissions rules. Last week, billboard trucks displaying Toyoda in MAGA regalia circled Toyota’s North America headquarters and several of its dealerships in Los Angeles.
- Toyota sponsored the reality TV show of Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy. The DOT is supposed to regulate the automaker, not do product placement for it.
- In December, the Guardian revealed how Toyota uses video games to cajole its employees into lobbying against clean air rules.
- This year, after pressure from Public Citizen and celebrities like Jane Fonda, prominent Hollywood climate group Environmental Media Association ended its 25-year relationship with Toyota.
- After a $1 million donation by Toyota to President Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Justice dismissed a massive bribery investigation against the automaker. The company’s Thai subsidiary had reportedly admitted to paying a Thai Supreme Court judge $18 million to reverse a $320 million tax evasion judgment against it.
- This month, Bloomberg reported that at Toyota’s behest, the Trump administration used the exact language Toyota lawyers had crafted to release it from the more than $40 million remaining in a settlement that the agency had reached with Toyota’s financing arm for illegal lending practices.
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