I think he meant buying VW’s stake in Argo AI. Not buying VW itself.

I do kinda love that they interpreted it that way though.

I’m picturing some coked out Ford exec screaming at his vp of finance “do we or do we have enough money to buy VW??!”

They don’t. But it’s not like anyone could buy VW it’s partially owned by the state and the trade unions could easily block it.

All of that is reflected in VWs share price. Without all this ‘socialism’ VW could probably easily buy Ford itself, maybe even GM.

Porsche is the majority shareholder in VW and VW itself owns 75% of Porsche (100% before the IPO)

Wait, what?! How can you have cycles in an ownership graph?

Ah, answering my own question, it seems to be called "circular ownership" and while it can sometimes occur from a long history of mergers and acquisitions (Samsung seems to be such a case), its generally a tax dodge or to mask ownership? At least, the top hits I see are all talking about it as a classic way to obscure oligarch ownership and things.

Genuinely curious who actually gets to make the decisions.

One important part of the answer is that there are two „Porsches“, a holding and a car manufacturer. It is also complicated though and there is much speculation who has how much influence.