Short answers, pulled from the story.
General Electric was founded in 1892 and incorporated in the state of New York. It ceased to exist as a single conglomerate in 2024, when it split into three public companies. GE Aerospace took the General Electric name, while the company's legal name remained General Electric Company.
General Electric was formed through the 1892 merger of Edison General Electric Company and Thomson-Houston Electric Company, with the support of Drexel, Morgan & Co. Edison General Electric had itself been incorporated in New York on the 24th of April 1889, consolidating several of Thomas Edison's separate electricity companies.
On the 9th of November 2021, final CEO Larry Culp announced General Electric would be broken into three separate public companies by 2024. GE HealthCare spun off on the 4th of January 2023, GE Vernova was created on the 2nd of April 2024, and GE Aerospace became an aviation-focused firm and the legal successor to the original GE.
GE founder Owen D. Young created the Radio Corporation of America in 1919, and RCA co-founded NBC in 1926. After being ordered to divest RCA in 1930, GE reacquired it in December 1985 for $6.28 billion to gain NBC. GE owned the NBC network from 1986 until 2013, when Comcast bought its remaining stake.
General Electric contaminated the Hudson River with PCBs between 1947 and 1977, and the EPA declared a 200-mile stretch a Superfund site in 1983. GE also polluted the Housatonic River with PCB discharges from its Pittsfield, Massachusetts plant from around 1932 until 1977, agreeing to a $250 million settlement in 1999.
On the 15th of August 2019, financial fraud investigator Harry Markopolos, known for exposing Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, accused General Electric of being a bigger fraud than Enron and alleged $38 billion in accounting fraud. GE denied wrongdoing, and in October 2020 it received a Wells notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission.