GMAC ousts CEO de Molina

Although there are glimmers of hope in the auto industry, Alvaro de Molina apparently won’t be around to see if the optimism is justified. The Wall Street Journal reported that de Molina was ousted on Monday as CEO of GMAC Financial Services – the major auto lender recently supported by federal bailout money – after just 19 months on the job.

Even though GMAC has received $12.5 billion in taxpayer money (giving the government a 35.4 percent stake in the company), Treasury spokesperson Andrew Williams said that the federal government played no role in the decision to let de Molina go and that it was “100 percent a GMAC decision.”

GMAC announced that de Molina would be replaced by Michael A. Carpenter, a GMAC director who previously led Citigroup Inc.’s global investment bank.