The Boeing Company - General Discussion

Now that he’s in charge, Mr. Calhoun has become more willing to openly criticize Mr. Muilenburg. He said the former chief executive had turbocharged Boeing’s production rates before the supply chain was ready, a move that sent Boeing shares to an all-time high but compromised quality.

“I’ll never be able to judge what motivated Dennis, whether it was a stock price that was going to continue to go up and up, or whether it was just beating the other guy to the next rate increase,” he said. He added later, “If anybody ran over the rainbow for the pot of gold on stock, it would have been him.”

Asked whether he believed American pilots would have been able to handle a malfunction of the software, Mr. Calhoun asked to speak off the record. The New York Times declined to do so.



“Forget it,” Mr. Calhoun then said. “You can guess the answer.”