GM reports record profits, stronger results ahead, but uncertainty about policy under Trump

New York
CNN
 — 

General Motors reported a record adjusted net income for 2024 on Tuesday, just a year after the costly strike by the United Auto Workers union, and said it expects even better operating results in the year ahead.

But the company admitted a number of policy headwinds from the Trump administration could derail that profit guidance, as GM and the rest of the US auto industry deals with making plans in the face of uncertainty.

Tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, which provide parts to GM’s US plants, could badly disrupt the automaker’s supply chain and raise the cost of assembling cars and trucks. GM also has assembly plants in both countries sending cars to the US market.

President Donald Trump is also taking aim at federal support for electric vehicles and the Environmental Protection Agency’s emission rules, which could delay GM’s planned shift from gasoline-powered vehicles to electric vehicles over the course of the next decade, as well as its plans to trim current losses on EVs.

GM declined to comment on the specifics of how it plans to deal with the challenges.

“We’re having conversations broadly with the administration, internally, with our partners, with our supply chain, really trying to understand what we would do in the event the world changes dramatically,” GM CFO Paul Jacobson told reporters Monday evening. “I would say we’ve got a pretty extensive playbook. I won’t go into the details. We’ve been preparing for that. We want to make sure we are prudent, we don’t overreact.”

He also wouldn’t comment on what GM and other automakers seek from the Trump administration regarding environmental regulation including Trump’s call to eliminate a $7,500-per-vehicle tax credit for buyers of electric vehicles.

For 2024, GM reported an adjusted net income of $12.1 billion, topping the previous record of $11 billion set in 2022.

Its net income for the year was $6 billion after facing a loss in its fourth quarter, from charges for restructuring its operations in China and discontinuing plans for a fleet of driverless robotaxis.

Still, even its losses did not reduce profit-sharing payments for GM’s 45,000 UAW members, who each got record payments of up to $14,500, equal to more than two months of pay.

“Suffice it to say, 2024 was an outstanding year for GM,” Jacobson said. “When we deliver results like these, everybody wins.”