Lordstown

Where there’s smoke there usually is fire. On the day that Lordstown Motors announced the immediate resignations of CEO Steve Burns and chief financial officer Julio Rodriguez, the company issued another release that received less media attention.

That June 14 release disputed the findings of a Hindenburg Research Report that charged the company made “various misstatements about demand for its Endurance pick-up truck, the viability of the technology utilized in the Endurance, and its ability to start production of the Endurance in September 2021.”

Lordstown’s board created a special committee to investigate the charges brought forth by Hindenburg and hired law firm Sullivan & Cromwell to investigate.

That probe found the Hindenburg Report “is, in significant respects, false and misleading.” It said Hindenburg’s claims about the “viability of its technology and timeline to start production are not accurate,” though it raised some accurate questions about pre-orders for the Endurance.

Lordstown plans to produce the Endurance in a plant that had been abandoned by General Motors.

Former president Trump used the Endurance for a White House photo op on Sept. 28, 2020, as a symbol of his effort to bring jobs to Ohio’s Mahoning Valley. “We’ve been working on this very long and very hard,” said Trump. The ex-president's boast may have been nothing but hot air.

Lordstown Motors pitches itself as a manufacturer “with the purpose of transforming Ohio’s Mahoning Valley and Lordstown into the epicenter of electric-vehicle manufacturing.”

With the resignation of its CEO and CFO, that lofty goal looks iffy. We will see if the Hindenburg prediction of a September meltdown happens. Lordstown Motors may need some divine intervention to regain its momentum.

James “Tough Guy” Gorman tells it like it is.... The Morgan Stanley CEO told employees skittish about reporting to work to buck up. “If you can go into a restaurant in New York City, you can come in to the office and we want you in the office,” he said June 14 during a financial services conference.

Gorman also threw cold water on the idea of tele-commuting from Florida or from any other remote location. “If you want to get paid New York rates, you work in New York,” he said.

The CEO, who came down with COVID-19 at the very beginning of the pandemic, will be “very disappointed” if the old gang isn’t back at the company’s 1585 Broadway headquarters by Labor Day.

Those who do not report to duty may find themselves facing a chilly Fall season.

PwC’s decision is to add 100K people to the payroll over the next five years in a ringing endorsement for the potential of environmental, social and governance PR.

The Financial Times reports that PwC’s commitment is the “strongest signal yet that the Big Four accounting firms expect ESG advice to become a core part of all of their business lines, just as digital capabilities have become the norm over the past decade.”

Source Global Research estimates the market for counsel on “pure” sustainability issues topped the $1B mark in 2020.

Let the hiring spree for PR pros schooled in the ways of ESG begin.