The head of the luxury carmaker Audi is under fire in Germany for appearing at a rally with Donald Trump just days before the US midterm elections, to announce billions of dollars of investment in battleground state Georgia.

Gernot Döllner joined Trump on stage after the US president gave a speech criticised by the head of an elected body of employees at Audi’s parent company, Volkswagen, as being full of “racism, sexism, transphobia [and] contempt for democracy”.

Daniela Cavallo, the head of the VW works council, added that anyone who heard Trump’s speech and then saw that Döllner had become an active participant in the event must “sink into the ground with shame”, according to internal company communications released to German media.

She said the investment deal and Döllner’s appearance showed VW’s management had allowed itself to be “turned into a puppet in the propaganda show of a highly dubious political figure”.

Isabel Cademartori, the transport spokesperson for Germany’s Social Democrats – part of…