11:54 a.m. ET: President Obama says GM is much larger and much more complex than Chrysler.
11:56 a.m. ET: If all goes according to plan, Obama says, GM will build more cars in the U.S. than it has in 30 years.
11:58 a.m. ET: “What we have is an incredible plan full of promise.”
11:59 a.m. ET: The plan entitles American taxpayers to about 60% of the new GM, Obama says, because its survival and the overall success of the country depend on it.
12:01 p.m. ET: “We are acting as reluctant shareholders.”
12:02 p.m. ET: Today marks “the end of an old GM and the beginning of a new GM.”
12:03 p.m. ET: More jobs will be lost, more factories will close, more dealerships will shut their doors. But these people “are making a sacrifice” for the future, Obama says. Sounds like Chrysler execs a few weeks ago outlining their dealership-termination plan.
Those numbers are just ugly.
I’ll be adding some in-the-moment reactions to the press conference, as well.
Obama calls the US government a “reluctant shareholder,” but it is a shareholder nonetheless. As my colleague, Marcie Belles, wrote earlier, this balance between active and passive ownership by the US government is difficult to understand or foresee.
It is difficult to tag Chrysler a “success” when it has only completed bankruptcy, not resumed profitability.
He is certainly setting the bar high for the New GM, that it should be able to compete on the global business stage.