The size of automaker CEO pay packets seems absurd to most of us at the best of times. But when those awards relate to a year in which the company in question took an absolute beating both in the sales charts and the stock market, they do stop making any sense.

That’s the view of a hardcore bunch of Stellantis investors who tried and failed to prevent the automaker’s former boss from being given tens of millions of dollars in remuneration for his work in 2024, a year in which both profit and output tanked.

Related: Mary Barra Was Paid 310 Times More Than The Average GM Worker And Still Got A Raise

This week, 67 percent of Stellantis investors voted in favor of awarding ex-CEO Carlos Tavares €23.1 million ($26.3 m) for his leadership role last year, comprising his regular salary plus an extra €12 million ($13.7 m) in severance and milestone bonus payments, Bloomberg reports.

But ahead of the shareholder meeting during which that package was greenlighted, one high-profile stockholder, Charles Pinel, CEO of Proxinvest, had fought to strike down the deal.

“It’s not acceptable to award severance pay to a manager who led the company to a situation of failure,” he told other shareholders.

Tavares’s 2024 pay deal was already far less than the colossal €36.5 million ($41.5 m) he earned in 2023, but then Stellantis seemed relatively healthy two years ago. In contrast, profits plunged 50 percent in the first half of 2024 and were down 70 percent at the year’s end to €5.5 billion ($6.3 bn). By that point Tavares had been forced out, Stellantis announcing his exit at the beginning of December.

Five months on, Stellantis is still looking for a new CEO, though Chairman John Elkann claims a new boss will be appointed this quarter. Ditching Tavares hasn’t helped Stellantis make a miraculous turnaround – sales were down a fifth in the first three month of 2025 and Trump’s tariffs are causing a major PITA because many of the company’s vehicles and the parts needed to build those vehicles cross borders before reaching American showrooms.

But some of Tavares’s unpopular decisions, including killing off the Hemi V8, have been reversed. Dodge is believed to be working on re-engineering its new Charger, which was only conceived with EV and Hurrican I6 power in mind, to take a V8.