Business tycoon Carlos Ghosn’s rise, fall and dramatic escape is subject of new Apple TV+ series

AP
August 24, 2023

Former Nissan executive Carlos Ghosn speaks during an interview in Beirut, Lebanon on June 23. (AP Photo)
NEW YORK--Carlos Ghosn, the former rock star businessman who fell from grace and fled authorities smuggled in a music instrument box, is getting what his dramatic story deserves — a multi-part documentary series.

“Wanted: The Escape of Carlos Ghosn” is the juicy real tale of how the auto executive went from attending red carpets as the head of both Nissan and Renault to fleeing to Lebanon with the help of a former Green Beret.

“The Carlos Ghosn story is unbelievable in the sense that it’s a Shakespearean tragedy in which we have an archetypal tragic hero who everybody wants to root for but knows the train crash is coming,” said Sean McLain, a consulting producer on the Apple TV+ series and Wall Street Journal reporter.

The four-part series, which starts Friday, takes a wider lens to Ghosn’s story, tracing the childhood and rise of the auto executive which Time magazine once put ahead of Bill Gates among the 15 most influential global business executives.

Voices included are Louis Schweitzer, former CEO of Renault; Andy Palmer, former COO of Nissan; Arnaud Montebourg, former French minister of economy; Takashi Yamashita, former Japanese minister of justice; and Hiroto Saikawa, former Nissan CEO.

Most crucially, director James Jones went to Lebanon and sat down with Ghosn and his wife, Carole, on camera. Jones got the job before he’d secured access to the couple but knew he had to have them participate.

“You need to hear from the people in the room. You can’t just have pundits commentating on what happened or kind of rehashing the story second-hand,” Jones says. “For me, getting Carlos and Carole Ghosn to talk frankly was a huge thing and I think that the series would have been a struggle to make without that.”

Many viewers may tune in because of the brazen way Ghosn left Japan in 2019 after being accused of financial improprieties. He turned to Mike Taylor, a former Green Beret, who hid the executive in a large music instrument box — with breathing holes drilled in — and got him out on a private jet.

“My initial reaction was like, ‘Is there enough for four parts?’ I know he’s an interesting guy who is a brilliant businessman, and the escape is thrilling,” said Jones. “But then when I spent the time reading up about it, it did feel rich and the kind of thing that’s quite satisfying to really get your teeth into.”

The Brazilian-born Ghosn took refuge in Lebanon, his ancestral homeland, which has no extradition treaty with Japan. He denied the financial improprieties charges and said Japan’s justice system was unfair. “I did not escape justice. I fled injustice,” he said at the time.

The series also investigates Japan’s legal system, which critics say amounts to “hostage justice,” allowing suspects to be questioned for days without a lawyer present while they are kept in solitary confinement in a small, spartan cell. The conviction rate of over 99% has raised questions over forced confessions.

The case against Ghosn centers on elaborate calculations to compensate him after retirement for a pay cut he took beginning in 2009, when disclosure of big executive pay became a legal requirement in Japan.

Ghosn argues the case against him was concocted in a power struggle within Nissan’s boardroom and the series does show a conspiracy by Nissan officials to get rid of Ghosn because they feared a merger with Renault.

“He was wronged and yet these allegations look very bad,” said Jones. “And by hiding out in Lebanon, he’s not helping the appearance of innocence.”

Ghosn may have escaped but not everyone who helped him did the same. Taylor was sentenced to two years in prison, while his son, Peter, was sentenced to one year and eight months for his part. They claim in the series that Ghosn never paid them for their work helping him escape.

Jones sees the Ghosn saga as a cautionary tale of a leader who lost his bearings. The executive may have believed that because he’d saved Nissan and Renault that he deserved extra compensation.

“He thought he had saved these companies from extinction and made them successful and made them in his own image and therefore was kind of entitled to play by his own rules to some extent,” he said.

McLain, whose book with fellow Wall Street Journal reporter Nick Kostov “Boundless” informed the series, said Ghosn’s fall illustrates the need for checks and balances in the C-suite.

“He was going to retire a very wealthy man, but because he wanted more, what he’s going to be known for from now on is spiriting himself away from Japan by hiding in a box.”

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Wanted: The Escape of Carlos Ghosn review – this twisty, dramatic tale will leave you agog
This article is more than 9 months old

The tale of the ex-car industry chief who made an astonishing escape while on bail – and is subject to an international arrest warrant – is fascinatingly told in this documentary

by Rebecca Nicholson
August 25, 2023

It’s always hard to make corporate skullduggery and intrigue seem thrilling on screen. The Big Short managed by having the technical explanations delivered by Hollywood A-listers. Succession needed the private lives of the Roys to save it from death by boardroom. It’s no mean feat to make such machinations interesting, even when the story is as twisty as that of former Nissan-Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn – who was accused of financial impropriety and imprisoned in Japan, before fleeing the country in 2019, despite being under heavy surveillance.

Wanted: The Escape of Carlos Ghosn, then, has to find a way through. This four-part documentary tells the story of Ghosn, the cost-cutting, money-making CEO who turned the fortunes of Renault and Nissan around – until he was arrested in Japan in 2018 on suspicion of “underreporting compensation” and “misuse of company assets”, at which point his fall from grace was all but inevitable. It soon becomes clear that this is only one layer of what turns out to be a rich and multifaceted fable.

This series tries to give viewers the whole story, which is long and complex. It is unapologetic in taking its time to rev up. The first episode establishes the question of whether Ghosn is a victim or a villain. The second tells the story of Ghosn’s arrest and his outrage at what he still claims is a great injustice, and the third focuses on his astonishing escape while on bail in Tokyo. If you were to watch those first three episodes, you might think you have an idea of where the film-makers’ sympathies lie. Stick it out until the fourth, though, because it takes a turn: by the time the extensive postscript flashed up at the end, I was agog.

Any lingering suspicion that corporate intrigue is often less than intriguing should be dispelled. Despite finishing both seasons of Industry– practically the same as an economics degree – I am still not particularly familiar with the business world. My heart sank at the giant percentages flashing up on screen in the early moments, but this documentary knows it has a fascinating story on its hands and soon ditches the gimmicks.

Ghosn is a character, that’s for sure, and this show delves into his “Midas touch” – a telling metaphor, as it is only used with reference to Midas’s positives, and not the well-publicised drawback. Who would have guessed that a lavish party thrown to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Renault-Nissan alliance, held at Versailles with a Louis XIV theme, might turn out to have been a bit extravagant, in hindsight?

The series is a slow burn that doesn’t rush the details. It paints a picture of how globalisation often fails to consider cultural differences, whether in French society’s attitudes to what is acceptable pay for a chief executive, to Japanese customs and nuances around cutting a workforce. The 2008 financial crash led to Ghosn halving his salary, but may have triggered the events that led to his subsequent arrest.

There’s an extensive list of interviewees, including French and Japanese former ministers, journalists who have reported on Ghosn and former colleagues. We meet those who played a part in getting him out of Japan, and who paid the price for doing so. But the headline draw is Ghosn himself, who is interviewed by director James Jones at length. His participation is handled elegantly over the series. He puts his case, others put theirs. Jones waits until the final episode to pose the tough questions, but it’s well worth the wait.

The documentary suffers from open-endedness, through no fault of the film-makers. While an international arrest warrant has been issued, Ghosn is not currently under arrest. The film also appears to tread carefully over certain details. At one point, Ghosn’s second wife, Carole, stumbles on a question about his escape from Japan, pointing out that legally, she is not allowed to talk about certain aspects of it. There is the matter of a hard drive, the contents of which “shock the conscience”, according to one talking head who claims to be in the know. The show doesn’t entirely manage to unravel the many knots it displays. It may be a little slow for some, but rewards extra concentration, and is a smart take on a riveting tangle of power, money and greed.