They’ll tell you it’s about innovation. Energy transition. Fresh leadership. The future.
That’s the headline.
The numbers?
Q1 sales and net income down.
Executive reshuffle.
A new Chief Legal Officer just in time for… what exactly?
Cummins will point to its Battery Energy Storage Systems rollout in the Middle East — a neat distraction from the smoke trailing out of Darlington and the emissions scandal they paid $1.675 billion to settle without admitting fault. Diesel? Let’s not talk about diesel. That’s last decade’s stench.
But let’s be real: this isn’t a pivot. It’s a PR defibrillator.
The share price might be twitching upward, but don’t confuse that with health. What you’re seeing is investors gambling that Cummins can outrun the headlines. That the exec departures are “strategic” rather than scrambled. That no one notices what’s been swirling in their rearview for years — the fines, the lawsuits, the edited documents, the rising internal noise.
Because once you strip away the investor slides and LinkedIn platitudes, here’s what’s left:
Declining revenue. Executive churn. A trust deficit.
You can launch all the batteries you like — it won’t charge what’s morally flat.
Inside the factory walls and legal corridors, they know the heat’s rising. From emissions regulators. From FOI requests. From people like me who used to work there and now shine a light on what they won’t say out loud.
This is what happens when you run a company like a casino: greenwash your sins, reshuffle the faces, and hope no one notices the rot under the tiles.
They wanted the future.
Instead, they’re getting scrutiny.
Lee Thompson
Founder – The Cummins Accountability Project