Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg faces calls to resign in second day of 737 MAX hearings in Congress
...Update, 11:40 a.m.
Rep. Jesus Garcia, D- Illinois, grilled – and mostly blasted – Muilenburg about the financial incentives of his job.
“The way I see it, your relentless focus on stock price and your company’s bottom line may have negatively affected employee performance, would you agree?” Garcia asked him.
“Congressman, I don’t agree with that. Our business model is about safe airplanes,” Muilenburg said.
Garcia wasn’t buying it. Citing internal company surveys and whistleblower reports, he said, “It’s pretty clear there has been a culture of greed and compromising safety at Boeing.”
“Mr. Muilenburg, you did everything to drive profits over safety. You skirted certification requirements or regulators at every corner, and your employees even admit to lying to the FAA. There are basically two ways that this plays out. You either truly didn’t realize that you had an defective plane, which demonstrates gross incompetence and or negligence, or you did know you had a defective plane but still tried to push it to market. In which case, in which case it’s just clear corruption.”
“Either way, Mr. Muilenburg, you’re still the captain of this ship. A culture of negligence, incompetence or corruption starts at the top and it starts with you. You padded your personal finances by putting profits over safety and now 346 people, including 8 Americans, are dead on your watch… I think it’s time that you submitted your resignation, don’t you?”
Muilenburg: “Congressman, I respectfully disagree with your premise on what drives our company.”
Garcia: “Ok, well whether or not you or your colleagues are incriminated in the ongoing criminal investigation, the facts remain: It was either gross negligence, incompetence or corruption. You’re at the top. I think it’s pretty clear to me, to the families of the victims and to the American public that you should resign and do it immediately.”...