GM’s Ed Whitacre still uses AT&T corporate jets for free

Posted: Mar 08, 2010
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After hearing an earful from lawmakers, General Motors dumped its corporate jets last year while in bankruptcy after flying top executives to Washington to ask for a federal loan. Well, GM’s brand new CEO Ed Whitacre still flies private thanks to his former employer, AT&T.

Whitacre, 68, negotiated a sweet lifelong deal with AT&T before he retired in 2007 that allows him to fly free on AT&T corporate jets for 10 hours a month – and that’s on top of his $158 million package deal. The free 10 hours are equivalent of two round-trip flights between his home in San Antonio and his apartment in Detroit.

The 10 hours of corporate jet flight time for Whitacre costs AT&T a hefty $20,000 a month, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The perk is now being seen as potential image problem for AT&T and GM.

Whitacre gets about $9 million at his job at GM, including an annual salary of $1.7 million. The Detroit automaker said he does not use AT&T jets for GM business.

David Lewin, a professor at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles, says that the benefit should be suspended until Whitacre leaves GM.

“It’s more than a perception problem. If I was an AT&T shareholder or executive, I’d put up a stink about this,” Lewin said.

Source: Detroit News

- By: Omar Rana


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  • aelalaily

    Sweet deal he's got with AT&T. Pretty smart of him!

  • AwesomeBob

    Who cares! It's his life not the Government's.

  • Rob Evans

    Dear Sir/Madam This is disgusting. GM went to Pres.Obama to cry poverty but took their private jet.At the same time he is having a martini on his private jet, he is discussing how he is going to use the billions of free tax-dollars. He does no give a DAMM about the thousands of GM line workers who were fired without cause and a long list of GM car plants that were closed. He is to busy enjoying his golden parachute of $ 158 million he got from AT&T plus the use of the Corp[orate Jet. We are approaching a point made very famous by Marie Antonoinette in France when she told the starviing peasents, “Let them eat cake” and then the revolution started. I admire Pres. Obama, he is much better than our PM Harper, but I wonder why he can not claw back these gross “golden parachutes” through higher taxes? He should get a salary of zero dollars until he produces decent cars which GM has not done for over 30 years and then he will EARN his pay to be assessed each year by the shareholders.