Overview
- Audi CEO Gernot Döllner appeared on stage with President Trump when Trump announced a planned Audi plant in Perry, Georgia, on Saturday that reports say would involve about $4.2 billion in investment and roughly 4,500 jobs.
- New reporting says VW and Audi top executives and some supervisory-board figures were briefed days before the public announcement, intensifying questions over who approved the company’s participation.
- VW works-council chair Daniela Cavallo and IG Metall leader Christiane Benner publicly condemned Döllner’s appearance, the works council said it learned of his participation at short notice, and an online Campact petition has more than 100,000 signatures calling for his resignation.
- Audi has defended the decision as made solely in the company’s interest and cited political neutrality rules, while the Volkswagen Group has not publicly confirmed final board-level approval for the U.S. project.
- Reporting has raised the possibility that the negotiations included offers such as tariff relief for Volkswagen, a point that deepens governance and industrial-policy concerns and could affect jobs and investment decisions at German sites such as Neckarsulm.