, Columnist
An 1,800-Word Ramble Won't Absolve You From Coal
In an open letter, Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser tries to explain the decision to stay involved in a controversial project. He’s only gotten us more worried.
Sorry, I never told you all I wanted to say.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
“If I’d had more time,” the French mathematician Blaise Pascal once wrote, “I’d have written with more brevity.” Joe Kaeser, the chief executive officer of German industrial giant Siemens AG, should have heeded that dictum.
His 1,800-word open letter this week explaining Siemens’s decision to provide rail signaling for the controversial Carmichael coal project in Australia must count as one of the strangest pieces of executive communication since Elon Musk last opened his mouth.