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'Wall Street got had' — Cramer regrets believing Boeing after 737 Max test pilot messages are leaked

Key Points
  • "The idea was once Boeing was free to tell its story it was a good one," says CNBC's Jim Cramer. "That, I think, is no longer true."
  • "Wall Street got had," says Cramer, adding that's why Boeing shares fell so much on Friday and Monday.
  • Credit Suisse and UBS on Monday downgrade the stock to neutral from buy.
Jim Cramer: Wall Street got had by Boeing
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Jim Cramer: Wall Street got had by Boeing

CNBC's Jim Cramer on Monday ripped into Boeing following the leak of messages from a former test pilot expressing concern about the 737 Max two years before the first deadly crash involving the now-grounded jet.

"Wall Street thinks Muilenburg bagged them," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street," referring to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, who was stripped of his chairman role on Oct. 11.

"The idea was once Boeing was free to tell its story it was a good one," Cramer said. "That, I think, is no longer true."

"Wall Street got had," Cramer said, adding that's why Boeing shares were down nearly 7% on Friday, in their worst session in more than three years, and another 4% Monday morning.

Credit Suisse and UBS downgraded the stock to neutral from buy Monday, with both citing Friday's revelations of 2016 messages from then-chief technical pilot Mark Forkner, who wrote that the 737 Max flight-control program was "running rampant" in a flight simulator session.

In October 2018, a Lion Air 737 Max went down in Indonesia's Java Sea, killing 189 people. Less than five months later, 157 people were killed when an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max crashed after takeoff.

Shortly after the March crash, the entire 737 Max fleet was grounded worldwide, as global regulators, including the Federal Aviation Administration, investigated what caused the crashes.

The flight-control system and the ability of pilots to recover from its failure in flight later emerged as the heart of the probes. Boeing said it's developed a fix for the software that misfired, but regulators haven't yet signed off.