The Carlos Ghosn circus opened in Lebanon on Wednesday morning, with the ringmaster demanding rapt attention.
Some 120 journalists from around the world, armed with cameras and cellphones, crammed in a room to hear Ghosn defend himself for the first time since he fled from Japan last week. Ghosn, the former chairman of Nissan Motor Co. — and the creator of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance — spoke nonstop for an hour, his tone emotional, angry, aggrieved, sarcastic, sometimes all at once. Reporters asked Ghosn questions during the ensuing Q&A by shouting over everyone else.
Obviously, Ghosn's stunning escape — as you've no doubt read, he reportedly hid in a large black box to evade Japanese custom officials at Kansai International Airport — was the main reason the world's business media was in attendance. The Ghosn drama, which began with his surprise arrest in November 2018, has become irresistible. And perhaps just as obviously, it was the one topic Ghosn had no intention of discussing, presumably to protect those who helped him. He made that clear at the start of his news conference.