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Part of Elena’s responsibilities included powertrain and product planning. That meant she was more aware than most at Ford of the new products already under development, along with a new generation of engines that promised to get more power out of less gas. These were game-changers, she said, and Ford was committed to bringing them to market even if it had to make deeper cuts to pay for them. In the past, the company had eaten its seed corn. But not this time. Mulally was committed to that.

“It’s going to be tough, and it’s going to be hard, but we are going to get through it,” she insisted. “We have the expertise. We have the product.”

Elena choked up when she turned to the family’s obligation to the company’s employees.

“You’ve
got
to believe in this company, because the people who work here are so dedicated and so intensely proud that they
will
do everything in their power to make it work,” she said, adding that she had already lost many friends to the layoffs and seen others quit because they had given up hope before Mulally was hired. “If you don’t live it every day, it’s hard to understand. It’s not about whether Ford can be saved or not. We have no choice!”

As for the idea of selling out, Elena wanted no part of it. She understood why some of her relations might be uneasy about the challenges still facing Ford. She knew that many did not work for a living and had much of their wealth tied up in a company that had stopped paying dividends and offered little prospect of resuming those payments anytime soon.

“I know times are tough, but this company is going to succeed. I’m going to continue to support it, and I think you should, too. If you don’t, that’s fine—but I don’t think you’re making the right choice,” she said, reminding them that she and others in the room were more than willing to purchase shares from any family member
who needed cash or who no longer had the stomach for it. “I believe in the company, and I’m going to support the company.”
^*

By the time she sat back down, at least a few in the room were dabbing their eyes. Several of Elena’s relatives came up afterward and thanked her, including her cousin Bill, who had been told of her impassioned plea.

B
ill’s father also opposed bringing in Perella Weinberg or any other investment bank. William Clay Ford Sr. was the family’s patriarch—the last of Edsel Ford’s children, which also made him the last of Henry Ford’s grandchildren. He also was the largest individual holder of the family’s Class B shares. At the time, he owned 11.1 million of them, worth $90.6 million and accounting for 15.63 percent of the total. It was a tiny fraction of his immense fortune, which also included a significant chunk of the company’s regular Class A shares.
^†
He was the invisible hand behind his son’s rise to power, and if he said no to something, most of the other family members were not likely to say yes.

Bill also received strong support from his onetime rival for the Ford throne, Edsel Ford II. Hank the Deuce’s son had been out-maneuvered by his cousin in the 1990s, but he had taken his defeat gracefully. Though he remained on the board of directors and was the family’s designated liaison with the company’s dealers, he quit his day job at Ford and bought Chrysler’s corporate jet division, Pentastar Aviation, which he turned into one of the region’s largest jet charter companies. Edsel also became a major force in Michigan philanthropy, representing both the family and the company in the community. It was an important role, and he excelled at it.

Edsel controlled more of the Class B shares than anyone other
than William Clay Ford Sr., owning 4.18 million, or 5.89 percent, as well as a substantial number of publicly traded Class A shares. More important, he, along with Bill and his father, controlled the family trust, that held the vast majority of its stock—51.7 million shares that were voted as a bloc.

Edsel was traveling and could not be present at the meeting, but he wrote a two-page letter that was read aloud there, urging his relatives not to hire Perella Weinberg, asking them to instead give their full support to Bill and Mulally.

W
ith the biggest shareholders rallying around Bill, and his cousin Elena ready to buy the shares of anyone who did not believe in the company’s future, the dissent was squelched.

There are no votes at Ford family meetings. The emphasis is on consensus, and by the end of the session one had been reached: If anyone could save Ford Motor Company and the family’s legacy, it was Alan Mulally. His plan was the right one, and the heirs of Henry Ford owed it to Mulally to give him the time and the space necessary to execute it. They all agreed that hiring an outside adviser—particularly one with a reputation as a Wall Street dealmaker—was a mistake.
^*

Bill Ford breathed a long sigh of relief that night. For the first time in its history, the Ford family had been faced with a real threat to its unity and to its continuing control of the company. But he had held it together. Some shares would exchange hands, but not outside the family. In the months and years ahead, he would face persistent questioning from his relations about the resumption of dividends, but he would never again face a direct challenge to his authority, or to Mulally’s.

At least as far as the family was concerned, Mulally now had the breathing room he needed to execute his turnaround plan. They were on board. So was his senior leadership team. Now he just needed to win over the United Auto Workers.