Despite founding General Motors, one of the most successful car companies in the world, William Durant lost his multimillion-dollar fortune before he died.

Listen to the story of how General Motors beat out the Ford Motor Company to become the largest car manufacturer by 1931.

Owning a large catalog of brands with distinct purposes and customer bases helped General Motors overtake Ford Motor Company as America's leading car manufacturer, something that still sets the company apart today.

One of Henry Ford's early failed business ventures later became Cadillac

Although he didn't create General Motors, Alfred Sloan is widely credited with GM's massive success and is often considered one of the best American businessmen of all time.

Charles Kettering, the person who invented the electric starter on cars, helped develop the diesel locomotive engine while working as head researcher at General Motors.

Read what professors at Harvard Business School think led to General Motors' 2009 bankruptcy.

Listen to a recap of Alfred Sloan's autobiography, titled 'My Years with General Motors.'

See a timeline of important moments in General Motors' history, including its early automatic innovations in creating electrical systems in cars and the birth of the American muscle car in 1964.

One of Henry Ford's early vehicle prototypes broke an all-time speed record and got him the money to start Ford Motor Company

In 1919, General Motors created the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) to offer car loans and payment plans, revolutionizing America's relationship with debt by offering one of the very first buy now, pay later programs.

Abandoned Detroit: the decline of America's car mecca

Longtime General Motors CEO Alfred Sloan used the motto 'a car for every purse and purpose' to represent the value of having multiple car brands with different target audiences under one company.

After being the country's largest automaker by sales volume for nearly 100 years, Toyota surpassed General Motors as the top automobile manufacturer in the US—representing a shift in the American economy that once heavily depended on domestic manufacturing.

See a timeline of the US government's investments and restructuring efforts of General Motors following the Great Recession.

After investing more than $10B in less than 10 years, General Motors abandoned its controversial robotaxi development efforts in 2024.

Henry Ford pioneered the first moving assembly line, building on earlier iterations of the manufacturing method

Learn about how General Motors dismantled America's streetcars

Learn about the relationship between Thomas Edison and Henry Ford

Henry Ford built a plastic car from soybeans in 1941

Famed American investor Jesse Livermore made millions when the stock market crashed in 1929

In 1965, Warren Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway, a failing textile company

After delisting and going private for nearly two years in the midst of the Great Recession, General Motors went public for the second time in 2010 in what was then the largest IPO in history.

Watch someone drive a Model T Ford, which feels like driving 'a tractor with the soul of a sewing machine'—and learn how to operate one.

In what's known as 'The Erie War,' Jay Gould and Cornelius Vanderbilt fiercely feuded for control over the Erie Railroad—a roughly 450-mile-long rail line through New York.

JP Morgan once gave Nikola Tesla more than $150K to fund Wardenclyffe Tower, a massive electrical transmission tower in the middle of New York's Long Island.

Tesla's lack of business savvy and inability to commercialize led to his obscurity

Some of the robber barons, including Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, were among America's greatest philanthropists.

Watch Anderson Cooper, whose great-great-great-grandfather was railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, walk through the family's history.

Listen to a reflection on General Motors' role in American life.

Twain was a notoriously bad investor

Listen to the details of Henry Ford's widely speculated affair and secret child.

Listen to the history of JP Morgan's sprawling life as one of the most influential American financiers and bankers.

Read the founding story of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, named after longtime General Motors CEO Alfred P. Sloan and research director Charles Kettering.

How John D. Rockefeller became the world's first billionaire

In 1965, consumer advocate Ralph Nader released 'Unsafe At Any Speed,' a scandalous exposé on the risks of cars, prompting backlash from leading automakers including General Motors, which gave way to some of the earliest automobile regulations.

Despite meeting as ambulance drivers in WWI, Ray Kroc and Walt Disney weren't the driving forces behind McDonald's and Disney's numerous business partnerships.

Henry Ford once ran a failed rubber plantation in Brazil's Amazon Rainforest

Bob's Discount Furniture was born from a motorcycle accident

How Cadillac joined F1 as the first new team in a decade

Ray Kroc proposed the idea of franchising McDonald's as a way to sell more of his Multimixers 7 years before buying the McDonald's brothers out of the company for $2.7M.

Listen to an overview of the Gilded Age and the robber barons—including some of the most famous figures from the time and their lasting impact on American society and the economy.

General Motors President Charles Wilson is often quoted as saying, 'What's good for General Motors is good for America,' in 1953—but a closer examination of the records reveals a different message.

'Profits made out of the distress of the people are always much smaller than profits made out of the most lavish service of the people at the lowest prices that competent management can make possible.'

Explore a gallery of electric vehicles from before 1920

John D. Rockefeller—the world's first billionaire—was born to a well-known con artist father.

In February 2014, General Motors recalled more than 2.6 million cars—part of a record 30 million vehicles it recalled that year—over faulty ignition switches that had caused multiple deaths, ultimately costing the company more than $4B in repair costs, victim compensation, and other expenses.

The Model T's simple but functional design helped the car become popular

After the dynamite he invented to make handling explosives safer was instead used for warfare, Alfred Nobel reshaped his legacy by establishing the Nobel Prizes.

Charlie Munger was Warren Buffett's right-hand man, serving as vice-chair at Berkshire Hathaway until his death in 2023.

The Wrights battled inventor Glenn Curtiss for market dominance, ultimately losing