Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García’s Calls on Boeing CEO to Resign

Washington, D.C. - Today at a hearing entitled, "The Boeing 737 MAX: Examining the Design, Development, and Marketing of the Aircraft," Congressman Jesús "Chuy" García (IL-04), a member of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee and Financial Services Committee, grilled Boeing's CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, for putting profits over safety and pressed him to resign. Video of the Congressman's remark can be found at this link. Congressman García's statement follows:

"It's pretty clear there has been a culture of greed and compromising safety at Boeing. The company's CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, did everything to drive profits over safety and elude regulations. Corporate greed resulted in 346 people losing their lives.

"In a little over four years, the price of the company's stock tripled, providing significant personal profits to Mr. Muilenburg.

"Mr. Muilenburg's relentless focus on stock price and the company's bottom line negatively affected employee performance. An internal Boeing survey shows almost 40% of employees felt ‘undue pressure' coming from management.^[i]

"Curtis Ewbank, a Boeing employee said, ‘Boeing management was more concerned with cost and schedule than safety or quality.' Adam Dickson, a Boeing engineer said his managers warned in ‘very directly and threatening ways' that pay was at risk if targets weren't met.^[ii]

"There are basically two ways this played out.

"Either Mr. Muilenburg didn't realize Boeing had a defective plane which demonstrates gross incompetence and negligence, or he knew he had a defective plane but still tried to push it to market, in which case it is just clear corruption.

"He repeatedly said mistakes were made and he is fully accountable. If the Export Import Bank is not reauthorized and the MAX is left ungrounded, he may be back begging Congress for a bailout.

"A culture of negligence, incompetence, or corruption starts at the top. Mr. Muilburg padded his personal finances by putting profits over safety, and now 346 people, including 8 Americans are dead. It's time for him to resign."

When Mr. Muilenberg became CEO of the company in June of 2015, the stock price per share was $140. The stock price on the last trading day before the Ethiopian Air accident in March of this year was $422. From 1999 to 2009, it went from $42 to $49 a share; but from 2015 to 2019 it tripled from $140 to $422. ^[iii]

Mr. Muilenburg and the board authorized a $20 Billion stock buyback program in December of 2018 to help drive up the price of Boeing's stock. This was only two months after the Lion Air incident, which was the first Boeing 737 MAX crash^[iv]

A report from the American Prospect shows Mr. Muilenburg made more than $95 million from 2015-2018 -- almost $2M a month, and almost half of which came from stock dividends.^[v]