Morry Taylor

{{short description|American politician (born 1944)}}

{{for|persons of a similar name|Maurice Taylor (disambiguation)}}

{{infobox person

|name=Morry Taylor

|birth_name=Maurice Taylor Jr.

|birth_date={{birth date and age|1944|8|28}}

|othername=The Grizz

|birth_place=Detroit, Michigan, U.S.

|occupation={{flatlist|

• Politician
• businessman

}}

|party=Republican

}}

Maurice Taylor Jr. (born August 28, 1944) is the President and chief executive officer of Titan International, a tire and wheel manufacturing company. Taylor, nicknamed "the Grizz" for his bear-like gruffness, started in tool and die manufacturing before purchasing Titan Wheel International from Firestone.

Taylor was born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised in Ellsworth, Michigan.{{Cite journal|url=http://www.csmonitor.com/1996/0123/23101.html|title=Morry Taylor|journal=Christian Science Monitor|date=23 January 1996}} He gained brief fame outside the business world when he made an unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination in the U.S. presidential election of 1996, a campaign chronicled in his book Kill all the lawyers – and other ways to fix the government. He spent over $6 million, but received about 1% of the vote in all the primaries in which he ran.{{cite news| url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0CEFD81F39F93AA35750C0A960958260 | work=The New York Times | title=POLITICS: A DEPARTURE;Morry Taylor, Tire Magnate, Stops His G.O.P. Campaign | date=1996-03-09 | accessdate=2010-05-13}} His campaign is featured prominently in the Michael Lewis book Trail Fever. Taylor was also one of the subjects on the 19th episode of PRI's This American Life entitled "Rich Guys", originally aired in 1996.

In February 2013, Taylor met harsh criticism in France after a letter he wrote to the French minister of industrial renewal, Arnaud Montebourg. In that letter, he declined to invest in a Goodyear-owned French tire factory [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-workers-idUSBRE91J0OF20130220 "Keep your so-called workers, U.S. boss tells France"] because he claimed the workers were unproductive, and insulting the French in general. He added that he would be better off hiring workers in China or India and "pay less than one Euro per hour wage".[https://image.slidesharecdn.com/rponsetitanmontebourg-130219104219-phpapp02/95/slide-2-1024.jpg?1361292432 "Original letter from Maurice Taylor Jr"][https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9882422/US-boss-berates-French-for-three-hour-working-day.html "US boss berates French for 'three-hour' working day"].[http://www.latribune.fr/getFile.php?ID=6453905 "Response of French Minister (in French)"]{{dead link|date=January 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. In response, Montebourg noted that the French tire producer Michelin is vastly larger and more profitable than Titan.{{cite news|title=Arnaud Montebourg vs "The Grizz"|url=https://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2013/02/french-business?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/arnaudmontebourgvsthegrizz|newspaper=The Economist|accessdate=24 February 2013|date=2013-02-21}} In February 2015, in an interview with French television about the closed Goodyear factory, Taylor said that "France is a ruined country".{{cite news|title=Tout est foutu chez vous|url=http://tvmag.lefigaro.fr/le-scan-tele/actu-tele/2015/02/06/28001-20150206ARTFIG00350-morry-taylor-grand-patron-americain-sur-la-france-tout-est-foutu-chez-vous.php|publisher=Broadcast on France 2 and published in Le Figaro|accessdate=14 March 2015|date=2015-02-06}}