General Motors

In 1886, William C. Durant and Josiah Dallas Dort formed the Flint Road Cart Company in Flint, Michigan, which became the Durant-Dort Carriage Company. In 1904 Durant was asked to take over management of the Buick Motor Co., and within four years he made it the nation’s highest-volume automobile producer.⁠[1]

Durant proposed a holding company called General Motors, which was incorporated on September 16, 1908. Within 16 months he had bought 22 companies, including Buick, Cadillac, Oakland (later Pontiac) and Oldsmobile.⁠[2]

Market troubles led bankers to take control of General Motors for five years from September 26, 1910. Durant was again elected president in 1916. After the 1920 market drop, he was bailed out on condition that he resign completely.⁠[2]

In 1911 Durant founded Chevrolet and built it into a market leader within three years. He left General Motors in early 1921.⁠[1]

After about seven months of living on government support, General Motors Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York on June 1, 2009. It had met many, but not all, of the restructuring requirements the government had set 60 days earlier.⁠[3]

On July 10, 2009, General Motors Company, formerly NGMCO, Inc., completed the acquisition of substantially all assets of Motors Liquidation Company, formerly General Motors Corporation (Old GM), under Section 363(b) of the Bankruptcy Code, after a July 5 sale order of the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.⁠[4]

The new company’s common stock was held 60.8% by the U.S. Treasury, 17.5% by the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust, 11.7% by the Canadian government and 10% by Old GM. The company expected to go public in 2010 upon repayment of government loans.⁠[5]

General Motors sold $15.8 billion of common shares at $33 each in its initial public offering, and including preferred shares and an overallotment option the total could reach $23.1 billion. Its stock returned to trading on the New York Stock Exchange.⁠[6]

S&P Dow Jones IndicesS&P Dow Jones IndicesS&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) is a global index provider that compiles and licenses benchmark indices including the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It was formed in 2012 by combining McGraw-Hill’s S&P index business with the Dow Jones Indexes business held by a joint venture of CME Group and Dow Jones, and it is now the index business division of S&P Global, which holds about 73% of the interest.Open the full entry announced on June 3, 2013, that General Motors would join the S&P 100 and S&P 500S&P 500The S&P 500 is a U.S. large-cap equity index compiled by S&P Dow Jones Indices. It includes 500 leading companies, covers about 80% of available market capitalization and is described by S&P DJI as “widely regarded as the best single gauge of large-cap U.S. equities.”Open the full entry after the close of trading on June 6, replacing H. J. Heinz Co., in the Consumer Discretionary sector’s Automobile Manufacturers sub-industry.⁠[7]

On December 9, 2013, the Treasury Department announced it had sold its remaining General Motors shares, about five years after a $49.5 billion bailout in exchange for a majority stake, at a loss of more than $10 billion to taxpayers.⁠[8]

On December 10, 2013, GM named Mary Barra, then executive vice president of global product development, to succeed Dan Akerson as CEO. Akerson stepped down on January 15, 2014. It was the first time a woman had been named CEO of a car company. Barra began her career at GM in 1980.⁠[9]

Barra has also been Chair since 2016.⁠[10]

In February and March 2014, GM issued ignition-switch recalls. Its board retained former U.S. Attorney Anton Valukas for an independent investigation, whose report went to NHTSA, the Justice Department and members of Congress in June 2014.⁠[11]

A 2014 study commissioned by GM found that its engineers and lawyers knew about the defect for years before the recall.⁠[12]

GM faced a wire fraud charge for concealing a deadly problem with small-car ignition switches and agreed to a fine of around $900 million under a deferred prosecution agreement, under which the charge would be dismissed if it complied with oversight and other terms for three years. The recall covered 2.6 million older small cars worldwide, including the Chevrolet Cobalt and Saturn Ion.⁠[13]

The agreement also required an independent monitor. Barra said, “The mistakes that led to the ignition switch recall should never have happened.”⁠[11]

The final report of the 20-month compensation process led by Kenneth Feinberg found that 124 deaths and 275 injuries were related to the ignition switches, out of 4,343 claims submitted, and GM paid about $594 million.⁠[12]

In 2016, GM bought control of San Francisco-based Cruise for $581 million, hoping to build a robotaxi fleet.⁠[14]

On January 11, 2021, GM introduced a new logo, the first complete redesign of its badge since 1964. Its lowercase “m” is meant as a visual representation of the company’s Ultium electric-vehicle platform.⁠[15]

A Cruise driverless car stopped on a pedestrian who had been hit by another vehicle and dragged the person about 20 feet while trying to pull over. The California DMV immediately suspended Cruise’s driverless permits in San Francisco over an “unreasonable risk to public safety,” saying Cruise had not disclosed the pull-over. Cruise disputed this.⁠[16]

On December 10, 2024, GM said it would stop funding Cruise’s robotaxi development, given the time and resources needed to scale the business. Cruise had accumulated more than $10 billion in operating losses.⁠[14]

In February 2025, GM completed buying the noncontrolling interests in Cruise and began winding down its robotaxi operations.⁠[10]

GM’s 2025 revenue was $185.019 billion, down 1.3% from $187.442 billion in 2024, and net income attributable to stockholders was $2.697 billion, compared with $6.008 billion. Fourth-quarter net income was reduced by special charges mainly for a realignment of electric-vehicle capacity, and EV realignment adjustments totaled $7.914 billion for the year.⁠[17]

As of December 31, 2025, GM employed about 155,000 people worldwide.⁠[10]