Is Stadler’s Job as Audi’s CEO at Risk?

Audi AG chief Rupert Stadler isn’t likely to serve the entire 5-year contract extension he received in mid-May, sources tell Reuters.

The Audi board unanimously agreed to the extension. But Reuter’s sources say the deal was granted only because of an agreement among supervisory board members that Stadler would step down as CEO before the extension expired at the end of 2022.

The executive helped lead Volkswagen AG’s luxury brand through six years of steady sales growth. But he has come under increasing scrutiny and criticism for Audi’s role in parent company Volkswagen AG’s diesel emission cheating scandal.

On Friday VW denied a report in Der Spiegel on Friday that Stadler’s job is in jeopardy. But a source tells the Financial Times that unnamed executives at VW are “very unhappy” with the positive way Stadler described the result of an internal Audi investigation into the unit’s cheating.

German prosecutors have since early this year been looking into Audi’s V-6 diesels deemed illegal in the U.S. In March investigators raided several Audi facilities. Last week Germany’s transport ministry accused Audi of cheating on emission tests, prompting the carmaker to recall 24,000 of its 2009-2013 model A7 and A8 diesel-powered large sedans in Europe.

Reuters notes that former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn was granted a 5-year contract extension in early September 2015 but was fired three weeks later—a week after the VW diesel cheating scandal broke.