Is GM in As Much Trouble As Elon Musk Believes

On June 1, 2009 General Motors filed for bankruptcy in New York, with $82 billion in assets and $173 billion in liabilities. It was the largest industrial bankruptcy in history.  Of course GM was not alone.  The attitude of the incoming Obama administration and Congress was save the Banks and the Oligarchs, fuck America, while pretending it was to save America. 55.000 businesses went bankrupt in 2009, an increase of over 63% from the normal failing businesses churn rate.  Between 2008 and 2010 1.8 million small businesses went broke.

But let us get back to GM.  Which for the record my family has connections to GM and the last thing I want to happen is for GM to fail.  I want it to succeed.  I want it to survive.

General Motors current debt continues to climb.  This is in partly from the covid disaster and our insane government but still it is there.  GM has $112.61 Billion of long term debt.  And that is a climb from around $75 billion.  Compare that to Ford that is reducing its debt load, but is still high at around $84 billion.

GM is expected to have earned around $14 billion for 2022.  It has assets of over $98 billion. Ford is expected to have earned around $9 billion for 2022.  Ford has assets of over $246 billion.  And remember, both companies are coming off years of a covid economy, an incompetent government interfering in their businesses, and major supply chain issues.

Still, they have been throwing too much money away on their electric car albatross shenanigans and expecting  their consumers to pay the price of that foolishness at their car/truck dealerships on top of the already high inflation rate.  Plus their dealerships took advantage of vehicle shortages to rip their consumers off, so a great deal of good will has been lost.

But back to the question, is Elon Musk right or is Elon Musk wrong in thinking GM is heading toward a world of hurt.  I think the answer to that question depends not just on GM leadership and decision making, but what the Federal Reserve does and what our insane government does in the next year.

Although GM’s long term debt load should make any person a little nervous, given the larger economic environment every company faces, I think GM should be able to weather a moderate economic storm.  But could GM survive another 2008 situation?  It is probably doubtful GM could survive another 2008 disaster but then it is an open question to even if the United States could survive such a repeat calamity.