AN ICONIC car brand on the “brink of collapse” has faced another blow after shares plummet.
The Japanese carmaker pleaded for Elon Musk to come to the rescue after a failed merger, but the Tesla boss refused to step in.
Shares of Nissan Motor dropped by as much as 10 per cent, according to Bloomberg, leaving the manufacturing giant in the lurch.
The firm already cut 9,000 jobs globally and its CEO Makoto Uchida took a 50 per cent pay cut in a bid to keep the company afloat.
It started to struggle after “not keeping up with the times” in terms of the soaring popularity of hybrid electric vehicles.
Uchida said: “We weren’t able to foresee that hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids would be so popular.”
Nissan was part of an alliance with Mitsubishi and Renault, formed in 1999 but this partnership now appears to be at risk of falling apart.
If this happens, Nissan may need to seek out other forms of financial support in the next year.
Its factories in Tennessee and Mississippi held around one million cars but these dropped to 525,000 vehicles last year.
The carmaker was given “12 or 14 months to survive” and was forced to discuss a multi-billion pound merger with their rival Honda.
Lengthy conversations were had between Uchida and Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe but their relationship broke as merger talks developed.
Mibe reportedly asked Uchida to resign from his position before any further discussions, according to those close to the Nissan boss.
The Honda CEO was said to be frustrated by Nissan’s money problems and lack of speed, leading to the nearly £50billion merger being axed.
Uchida is claimed to have indicated he would like to remain in his position desire until 2026 but recent pressure from board members could lead to a change of plan.
Desperate for investors, Nissan turned to business mogul and Senior Advisor to the President of the United States Elon Musk for help.
It was hoped the Tesla leader would swoop in and snap up the Japanese company’s US factories, stablising Nissan’s position.
When a Financial Times article revealed that a high-level Japanese was hoping Tesla would invest, Nissan’s shares jumped by 9.5 per cent.
However, Musk made it clear he has no intention of stepping in as the firm’s saviour.
While he didn’t explicitly decline Nissan’s proposal, he responded to the Financial Times report on X and directed readers to his own designs instead.
On X, he shared: “The Tesla factory IS the product.
“The Cybercab production line is like nothing else in the automotive industry.”
Now that Musk has shown he’s not interested, Nissan’s stocks have plunged by 10 per cent – the most in three weeks.
Nissan remains one of the biggest car automotive firms in the world but industry insiders reveal it is now open to mergers with other car or tech manufacturers.
It’s speculated that Taiwanese electronic company Foxconn, also known for building iPhones for Apple, might be next in line to buy up shares.
