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John Elkann

Grandson of Gianni Agnelli, he leads the family holding company Exor and chairs Stellantis and Ferrari: the heir to Turin's industrial capital.

John Elkann is the head of the Agnelli family's companies: chief executive of the holding company Exor, chairman of Stellantis and of Ferrari, and chairman of the Fondazione Agnelli of Turin.[1] Grandson of Gianni Agnelli, son of Margherita Agnelli and Alain Elkann, he was designated by his grandfather as successor at the head of the group in 1997.[2] Since then his name has accompanied every great turning point of Turin's capital: the end of FIAT as an independent Italian company, the birth of Stellantis, the purchase and sale of the family newspapers.

The designated heir

In Gianni Agnelli's plans, succession was to go to Giovanni Alberto, son of Umberto Agnelli, who died of cancer in 1997; it was then that the choice fell on John, one of the three children of Margherita and Alain Elkann.[2] That same year the young man held 24.87% of Dicembre, the simple partnership created in 1984 that sits at the top of the family's control chain; at his grandfather's death, in 2003, his stake rose to 33.3%, and after the 2004 agreement, under which his mother gave up her father's shares in exchange for about 1.2 billion euros, it reached 58.7%. In 2015 his grandmother Marella Caracciolo transferred her own share to the three grandchildren, and John rose to 60%.[2]

A graduate of the Lycée Victor Duruy in Paris, he earned a degree in engineering at the Politecnico di Torino. He began working in 2001 at General Electric, in the internal audit group, across Asia, Europe and North America; in 2003 he joined the Fiat group.[1]

From Fiat to Stellantis

In 2010 Elkann succeeded Luca Cordero di Montezemolo as chairman of Fiat, a position he held until 2014.[3] Those were the years of the integration with Chrysler led by Sergio Marchionne: Exor's official biography credits Elkann with a contribution to the group's transformation into Fiat Chrysler.[1] The diocesan weekly La Voce e il Tempo, recalling the twentieth anniversary of the death of the Avvocato, attributed to the "Marchionne-Elkann duo" the departure from Confindustria, the shift of the group's centre of gravity from Turin to Detroit, and the relocation of its tax headquarters to Amsterdam and its legal headquarters to London.[4]

On 16 January 2021 the merger between FCA and the French PSA gave rise to Stellantis. Exor became its leading shareholder with 14.4%, ahead of the Peugeot family, the French public bank Bpifrance and the Chinese Dongfeng; Elkann took on its chairmanship, while operational leadership went to Carlos Tavares, who came from PSA.[5] On 1 December 2024 Tavares resigned. In the letter to employees the following day, Elkann wrote that "in recent weeks different points of view have emerged" and announced an executive committee tasked with running the company until the appointment of the new chief executive.[6] On 28 May 2025 the Stellantis board chose Antonio Filosa.[7]

The bond with the city runs chiefly through the Mirafiori plant. On 25 November 2025, at the start of production of the 500 Hybrid and the renovation works on the Palazzina Uffici, Elkann was at Mirafiori with Filosa, the minister Adolfo Urso, the president of the Region Alberto Cirio and the mayor Stefano Lo Russo.[8]

"This day represents a new impetus for Turin and for Mirafiori, places that symbolise our history and our future."

John Elkann, Mirafiori, 25 November 2025

Exor and the other holdings

Exor, founded in 2009 and led by Elkann as chief executive,[1] is headquartered in Amsterdam and controls or holds stakes in, among others, Ferrari, Stellantis, Philips, CNH, Iveco Group, The Economist and Juventus.[9] Elkann chairs Ferrari and in 2023 launched an investment management company called Lingotto; he also sits on the board of Meta and is among the promoters of Wave, the technology conference born as Italian Tech Week.[1]

For Juventus, the shareholders' meeting of November 2025 approved a capital increase and expanded the board to nine members, with a seat for the minority shareholder Tether. On that occasion Elkann stated: "We remain fully committed to Juventus and are proud to have been its controlling shareholder for more than a century."[10]

The newspapers

On 2 December 2019 Exor acquired the relative majority of GEDI, the publisher of Repubblica, of La Stampa and of Secolo XIX: a deal that closed forty years of De Benedetti's management of Repubblica and which Il Post called the biggest story to happen to Italian newspapers in this millennium. Elkann had previously given up his holdings in the Corriere della Sera.[11] The cycle closed with the sale of GEDI to the Antenna group: from 1 June 2026 La Stampa passed to La Stampa SAE, a company built around the publisher Alberto Leonardis, in which a foundation linked to Elkann and Exor holds about 22% of the minority stake, alongside Piedmontese partners such as Reale Mutua.[12]

The Fondazione Agnelli

Elkann chairs the Fondazione Agnelli, established in 1966 by the Avvocato for the centenary of the birth of Fiat's founder, Giovanni Agnelli. It is based in Turin on via Giacosa and since 2008 has focused mainly on education and training.[13]

The inheritance proceedings

Since 2020 his mother Margherita has been contesting in civil court the validity of the 2004 agreement.[2] In parallel, the Turin public prosecutor's office investigated the inheritance taxes on the estate of Marella Caracciolo, who died in 2019 (inheritance proceedings): in December 2025 the judge ordered Elkann's compulsory indictment, and the charge was later reclassified as fraudulent declaration; no verdict has been issued.[15][16]

Pages linking here

Timeline

  • — John Elkann, chairman of Stellantis, makes his debut on LinkedIn with a first post dedicated to Turin and innovation, inviting people to follow Wave by Vento, the tech conference scheduled at the Ogr from 7 to 9 October. → ANSA Piemonte TorinoOggi

Related articles: FIAT, Gianni Agnelli, Juventus Football Club, La Stampa, Marella Caracciolo Inheritance Case, Stellantis

Sources

  1. Exor
  2. Il Post — 8 November 2022
  3. Treccani
  4. La Voce e il Tempo
  5. Il Post — 10 January 2021
  6. Il Fatto Quotidiano — 2 December 2024
  7. Il Post — 28 May 2025
  8. Stellantis — 25 November 2025
  9. Exor
  10. ANSA — 7 November 2025
  11. Il Post — 3 December 2019
  12. Prima Comunicazione — 28 May 2026
  13. Fondazione Agnelli
  14. Il Post — 8 September 2025
  15. Il Post — 15 December 2025
  16. Il Post — 7 July 2026
  17. Adnkronos — 11 September 2026

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