Audi CEO Gernot Döllner joined US President Donald Trump on stage at a campaign rally in Georgia on Saturday to announce a $4.2 billion factory investment.
The plant, Audi’s first in the United States, will produce 200,000 vehicles annually and create about 4,500 jobs, Trump said at the event. Döllner appeared alongside the president to thank him for his support.
The move triggered sharp criticism in Germany. Christiane Benner, head of the IG Metall union, called Döllner’s appearance “extremely embarrassing, politically unacceptable, and unworthy of Audi and its employees” . Daniela Cavallo, chair of Volkswagen Group’s works council, said the executive had turned into “a marionette in a propaganda show” for a political figure at odds with the company’s values .
Critics also pointed to Volkswagen Group’s internal rules, which require political neutrality in the run-up to elections. Cavallo stated the guidelines explicitly ban public events with candidates in the three months before a vote . Dennis Radtke, head of the CDU’s employee wing, told Handelsblatt that using the investment as campaign material for Trump was “disturbing and pitiful” .
Olaf Lies, the Social Democratic premier of Lower Saxony and a major Volkswagen shareholder, said the announcement was part of a political staging. Analyst Ferdinand Dudenhöffer defended the economic logic of the US investment but called the rally appearance “a big blunder” .
The final decision on the Georgia plant still requires approval from Volkswagen’s supervisory board. Cavallo and Benner insisted that without a comprehensive plan addressing the impact on existing sites, they would withhold support .
