GM executive defends company on Facebook, then closes account

Reuters
General Motors World Headquarters (C) is seen looking south from the midtown area in Detroit, Michigan October 23, 2013. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

DETROIT (Reuters) - A top General Motors executive deactivated his Facebook account on Monday after he responded to a website that wrote dismissively about the company's shrinking U.S. auto market share. Mark Reuss, president of GM's North American operations, responded to an article on the automotive website TheDetroitBureau.com. Greg Martin, a GM spokesman, said, "Mark made a personal decision to deactivate his account and it was in no way related to any recent posts." Reuss' Facebook response was captured by a Wall Street Journal reporters' blog before the account was deactivated. The blog reported the deactivation of the account earlier on Monday. Reuss said in his Facebook post that GM now sells more vehicles with four brands in the U.S. market than it did with the eight brands it had when it entered bankruptcy in 2009. The article on TheDetroitBureau cited a recent U.S. General Accounting Office report that showed GM's market share had dropped since 2008, the year before its bankruptcy. GM's U.S. market share in the first nine months of 2013 was 18 percent, compared with 17.9 percent for 2012 and 22.2 percent in 2008, according to industry research firm Autodata Corp. (Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)