Meet John Elkann, the enigmatic billionaire heir fighting to save Jeep parent Stellantis

On By Littum

The car manufacturing giant behind Jeep, Ram and Chrysler has a new leader at the helm: John Elkann, heir to one of Europe’s famous industrial dynasties.

Elkann has finally stepped out of the background to take control Stellantisfor the first time ever, day-to-day operations are running at the world’s sixth largest car group by car sales.

Last Sunday, Elkann accepted the resignation of his challenged CEO, Carlos Tavares, after a disastrous nine months which left the company’s American dealers seething with anger.

To get a behind-the-scenes look at the enigmatic 48-year-old, Assets spoke with Jennifer Clark, author of L’Ultima Dinastiaor The Last Dynasty, a story about the family behind Fiat.

While the book was unauthorized, Elkann sat down to speak with Clark on several occasions to provide his own personal perspective on his family’s turbulent past.

She paints a picture of a sober, serious and unassuming businessman driven by one main desire: to ensure that the family fortune can be passed on to the next generation, even if it means taking unorthodox steps.

He has already reshaped the 125-year-old automaker — once the beating heart of Italy’s economy under his larger-than-life grandfather, Gianni Agnelli — not once but twice, first by buying Chrysler a decade ago and then later merging with rival French. car manufacturer Peugeot SA in 2021.

“John doesn’t have the sentimental attachment to Fiat that his grandfather had,” says Clark Assets. “He’s much more detached. He’s already done things his grandfather never would, like merging the company and moving the headquarters out of Italy.”

His pragmatic, no-nonsense style also means he can turn on a dime if the circumstances call for it.

“When Fiat Chrysler was in negotiations with Renaulthe just decided in one evening to walk away,” she recalls.

Born in 1976 in New York as the eldest of three children from a marriage that quickly broke up, he had a strained relationship with his mother after she remarried and felt a natural responsibility for his brother Lapo and sister Ginevra.

“Ginevra was maybe only 1 or 2 when their parents divorced. Those three siblings are family,” says Clark.

Elkann grew up in several countries, including Brazil, where he learned to speak Portuguese in addition to fluent English and Italian before attending high school in Paris.

“Their mother is Catholic, their father is Jewish, their stepfather is Russian Orthodox — they lived in all different countries, spoke all different languages, so it was pretty eclectic,” adds Clark. “Apart from holidays, John had never actually lived in Italy before starting his engineering studies in Turin.”