Dad must not have been paying much attention. There was a “GM Death Watch” internet site (by Bob Farago) years before. GM was lucky that Obama had won the WH so they got a bailout, otherwise it would have been carved up in bankruptcy.
At the time he was ~80 years old; he is not internet savvy. He got back 10 or 20 cents on the dollar. Luckily it was a very small fraction of his portfolio. He’s still around but not nearly as mobile anymore.