DuPont, Pierre S.

Chairman, General Motors, 1915-1929
President, General Motors, 1920-1923

Pierre S. duPont was elected Chairman of the General Motors Company following the dissolution of the banker’s trust that controlled GM from 1910-1915. At that time, duPont was an individual investor with 2000 GM shares. His election served as a truce between the bankers, who had taken control of GM in 1910, and GM founder William C. Durant, who was by 1915 in a position to “take back” GM after having accrued a narrow majority of the company’s stock using the profits of the Chevrolet Motor Company.

At the urging of his close advisor and DuPont company treasurer John J. Raskob, Pierre, as president of DuPont, invested the powder company’s wartime cash surplus to acquire a controlling interest in GM. Initially DuPont acquired 23.8% of GM stock, but this eventually rose to 37% in 1921. In 1957 DuPont was forced to divest itself of these holdings in an antitrust decision.

By agreement with Durant, Pierre and other DuPont men took responsibility for GM’s finances, overseeing the great expansion of 1917-19. But they failed to tame spending by GM’s autonomous divisions, leading to the crisis of 1920-21.

In the crisis of 1920-21, Pierre induced the DuPont company to invest substantial additional millions to avoid the collapse of GM after Durant’s valiant but doomed attempt to support the company’s stock in the severe national economic downturn that began in 1920. With Durant’s final ouster from the company he founded, Pierre took on the operating responsibility as GM President. He steered the company back to profitability and with Alfred Sloan’s able assistance, setting GM on course to become the industry leader by 1927.

Pierre also played the dominant role in the transformation of the DuPont company into what most business historians consider to be the first modern corporation, serving his family’s company as a technical, management and financial innovator. From 1902 to 1914 Pierre served variously as treasurer, executive vice-president, and acting president, and finally as president from 1915 until 1919.

--Joshdavidson 17 December 2007