William C. Durant, the man who would build the world's largest automaker, began his career selling horse-drawn carriages, not automobiles. In 1904, a fellow Flint businessman named James H. Whiting sold him the Buick Motor Company, a move that seemed counterintuitive given Durant's aversion to cars at the time. By 1908, Durant had formed General Motors as a holding company, borrowing the naming convention from General Electric to create a corporate structure that could swallow up competitors. His first acquisition was Buick, which he already owned, followed by Olds Motor Works on the 12th of November 1908. Under Durant's aggressive leadership, GM acquired Cadillac, Elmore, Welch, Cartercar, Oakland, the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company, and the Reliance Motor Car Company in 1909. However, his ambition outpaced his resources. In 1909, Durant attempted to acquire Ford Motor Company for $8 million, but banks refused to lend him the initial $2 million down payment. Over-leveraged and facing the Panic of 1910, 1911, the bankers who backed his loans forced his removal from the board in 1910. This was not the end of his story, as he would later co-found Chevrolet with race car driver Louis Chevrolet in November 1911, eventually reacquiring control of GM in 1916 with the backing of Samuel McLaughlin and Pierre S. du Pont.
The Architect of Modern Business
When Alfred P. Sloan took the helm in 1920, he transformed General Motors from a chaotic collection of brands into a corporate behemoth that defined the 20th-century American economy. Sloan established annual model changes, a strategy that made previous years' models "dated" and created a thriving market for used cars. He implemented the pricing strategy still used today, positioning Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac from least expensive to most. Under his leadership, GM acquired Vauxhall Motors for $2.5 million in 1925 and the Yellow Cab Manufacturing Company, whose president John D. Hertz joined the board. Sloan also created the "Art and Color Section" in 1927, appointing Harley Earl as its first director, the first design executive to lead a major American corporation. Earl's system of automobile design remains the industry standard. Sloan's influence extended beyond the factory floor; he was an ardent opponent of the New Deal and publicly admired Adolf Hitler, a stance that would later cast a long shadow over the company's history. In 1953, Charles Erwin Wilson, then GM president, was named United States Secretary of Defense by Dwight D. Eisenhower, highlighting the deep entanglement between the company and the federal government.The Dark Side of Progress
General Motors has a history of technological innovation that often came with a heavy price tag for public health and the environment. In 1921, Thomas Midgley Jr., an engineer for GM, discovered tetraethyllead as an antiknock agent, patenting the compound because ethanol could not be patented. This led to higher compression engines but also introduced lead into the atmosphere, a fact corporate executives understood from the beginning. Midgley also developed chlorofluorocarbons, which contributed to ozone depletion and are now banned. During World War II, GM produced vast quantities of armaments and aircraft for the Allies, yet its Opel division in Germany supplied the Wehrmacht with vehicles like the Opel Blitz. Nazi armaments chief Albert Speer allegedly stated in 1977 that Hitler "would never have considered invading Poland" without synthetic fuel technology provided by GM. The company was compensated $32 million by the U.S. government because its German factories were bombed by U.S. forces. In the 1930s, GM was also at the center of the "Streetcar Conspiracy," where it allegedly monopolized the sale of buses to National City Lines to dismantle streetcar systems in U.S. cities, making buses the dominant form of public transport. This strategy, which violated the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, reshaped American cities and cemented the car's dominance.