Worst CEO of the Year: Bill Ford of Ford

This is the past successful our bid connected the worst CEOs successful America for 2025. We person a victor aft picking respective possibilities earlier: William Clay Ford Jr., enforcement seat of Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F).

• William Clay Ford Jr. of Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) is our prime for the worst CEO successful America for 2025.

• He is down Ford’s disastrous crook into the electrical conveyance business.

• A caller survey identified 1 azygous wont that doubled Americans’ status savings and moved status from dream, to reality. Read much here.

The main executives successful this bid were selected based connected their large strategy stumbles and connected however their decisions affected shareholders, customers, and employees. Some of these CEOs are comparatively caller to the nationalist corporations they run. Others, similar “Bill” Ford, person had their jobs for years.

Bill Ford is simply a subordinate of the Ford household who oversees the company’s interests and those of the broader shareholder base. The household controls the company’s Class B shares, which gives them voting power of America’s second-largest car company.

While the CEO connected insubstantial is Jim Farley, Bill Ford has tally the institution since 1999. In that time, helium has worked his mode done CEOs Jacques Nasser, Alan Mulally, Mark Fields, and James Hackett. Ford adjacent had a play erstwhile helium himself was CEO.

Ford’s colossal failure, symbolically, tin beryllium traced to 1 moment. In April 2022, helium told The Detroit News erstwhile the institution launched its electrical conveyance (EV) flagship, the F-150 Lightning, “To enactment this successful position ... it is astir apt the astir important motorboat of my career. ... This has been a idiosyncratic travel of excavation since I joined the institution 43 years ago.”

Monday, the institution walked distant from overmuch of its EV business, stating that the decision, “Rationalizes U.S. EV-related assets and merchandise roadmap: Ford expects to grounds astir $19.5 cardinal successful peculiar items with the bulk successful the 4th quarter. The institution expects astir $5.5 cardinal successful currency effects with the bulk paid successful 2026 and the remainder successful 2027.” The Lightning’s existent version, the awesome of the company’s future, was killed.

The Wall Street Journal’s header was “Ford Takes $19.5 Billion Hit successful Detroit’s Biggest EV Bust.” Its determination into EVs is among the worst ample institution strategies of the 21st century.

Bill Ford, on with Farley successful astir of the company’s nationalist statements, defended the determination twelvemonth aft year. In 2021, Ford said it would put $30 cardinal into its EV efforts. Later, the institution said it would physique 600,000 EVs annually by 2023 and 2 cardinal by 2026. In a past drawback astatine EV success, successful August, the carmaker launched a caller manufacturing inaugural that it said would alteration the car industry. Its archetypal merchandise was to beryllium an EV motortruck successful 2027.