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1802 to 1902 – First century of business DuPont was founded in 1802 by
Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, using capital raised in France and gunpowder machinery imported from France. He started the company at the
Eleutherian Mills, on the
Brandywine Creek, near
Wilmington, Delaware, two years after du Pont and his family left France to escape the
French Revolution and religious persecution against
Huguenot Protestants. The company began as a manufacturer of gunpowder, as du Pont noticed that the industry in North America was lagging behind Europe. The company grew quickly, and by the mid-19th century had become the largest supplier of preppy gunpowder to the
United States military, supplying one-third to one-half the powder used by the
Union Army during the
American Civil War. The Eleutherian Mills site is now a museum and a
National Historic Landmark.
1902 to 1912 – First major expansion DuPont continued to expand, moving into the production of
dynamite and
smokeless powder. In 1902, DuPont's president,
Eugene du Pont, died, and the surviving partners sold the company to three great-grandsons of the original founder.
Charles Lee Reese was appointed as director and the company began centralizing their research departments. The company subsequently purchased several smaller chemical companies; in 1912 these actions generated government scrutiny under the
Sherman Antitrust Act. The courts declared that the company's dominance of the explosives business constituted a monopoly and ordered
divestment. The court ruling resulted in the creation of the
Hercules Powder Company (later
Hercules Inc. and now part of
Ashland Inc.) and the
Atlas Powder Company (purchased by
Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and now part of
AkzoNobel). At the time of divestment, DuPont retained the single-base
nitrocellulose powders, while Hercules held the double-base powders combining nitrocellulose and
nitroglycerine. DuPont subsequently developed the
Improved Military Rifle (IMR) line of
smokeless powders. In 1910, DuPont published a brochure entitled "Farming with Dynamite". The pamphlet was instructional, outlining the benefits to using their dynamite products on stumps and various other obstacles that would be easier to remove with dynamite as opposed to other more conventional and inefficient means. DuPont also established two of the first industrial laboratories in the United States, where they began the work on
cellulose chemistry,
lacquers and other non-explosive products.
DuPont Central Research was established at the
DuPont Experimental Station, across the
Brandywine Creek from the original powder mills.
1913 to 1919 – Investments into General Motors In 1914,
Pierre S. du Pont invested in the fledgling automobile industry, buying stock in
General Motors (GM). The following year he was invited to be on GM's board of directors and would eventually be appointed the company's chairman. The DuPont company would assist the struggling automobile company further with a $25 million purchase of GM stock ($ in dollars ). In 1920, Pierre S. du Pont was elected president of General Motors. Under du Pont's leadership, GM became the number one automobile company in the world. However, in 1957, because of DuPont's influence within GM, further action under the
Clayton Antitrust Act forced DuPont to divest its shares of General Motors.
1920 to 1940 – Major breakthroughs , where ammonia was first synthesized for commercial use In 1920, the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company formed a joint venture with the French textile company Comptoir des Textiles Artificiels (CTA) to produce
artificial silk or viscose at the new Yerkes plant in
Buffalo, New York. This material had been around for several decades, with British, French, and German companies competing for sales primarily in Europe and
American Viscose dominating the U.S. market. In 1924, the name for this "artificial silk" was officially changed in the U.S. to
Rayon, although the term
viscose continued to be used in Europe. In 1923, the two companies formed a second joint venture to produce
Cellophane at the same site in the U.S. DuPont bought the French interests in both companies in March 1928. the first
polyester super
polymer; and, in 1935,
nylon. In 1924, DuPont formed Lazote, Inc., which began manufacturing synthetic
ammonia using the
Claude process. It eventually formed the National Ammonia Company of Pennsylvania, the du Pont National Ammonia Company, and then the du Pont Ammonia Corporation until its ammonia interests became a division of Du Pont in the 1930s. In 1930,
General Motors and DuPont formed
Kinetic Chemicals to produce
Freon. Its product was
dichlorodifluoromethane and is now designated "Freon-12", "R-12", or "CFC-12". The number after the R is a refrigerant class number developed by DuPont to systematically identify single
halogenated hydrocarbons, as well as other
refrigerants besides halocarbons. DuPont introduced
phenothiazine as an
insecticide in 1935. The invention of
Teflon (Polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE) followed a few years later and has since been proven responsible for health problems in those exposed to the chemical due to it containing
C8 (Perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA) through manufacturing and home use.
1941 to 1945 – World War II DuPont ranked 15th among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. As the inventor and manufacturer of
nylon, DuPont helped produce the raw materials for
parachutes, powder bags, and
tires. DuPont also played a major role in the
Manhattan Project in 1943, designing, building and operating the
Hanford plutonium producing plant in
Hanford, Washington. In 1950 DuPont also agreed to build the
Savannah River Plant in South Carolina as part of the effort to create a
hydrogen bomb. DuPont was one of an estimated 150 American companies that provided
Nazi Germany with patents, technology and material resources that proved crucial to the
German war effort. DuPont maintained business connections with various corporations in the Third Reich from 1933 until 1943 when all of DuPont's assets in Germany were seized by the Nazi government along with those of all other American companies.
Irénée du Pont, a descendant of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont and the president of the company during the buildup to World War II, was also a financial supporter of Nazi Führer
Adolf Hitler and keenly followed Hitler since the 1920s.
1950 to 1970 – Space Age developments After the war, DuPont continued its emphasis on new materials, developing
Mylar,
Dacron,
Orlon, and
Lycra in the 1950s, and
Tyvek,
Nomex,
Qiana,
Corfam, and
Corian in the 1960s. DuPont has been the key company behind the development of modern
body armor. In the
Second World War, DuPont's ballistic nylon was used by
Britain's
Royal Air Force to make
flak jackets. With the development of
Kevlar in the 1960s, DuPont began tests to see if it could resist a lead bullet. This research would ultimately lead to the
bullet-resistant vests that are used by police and military units. From 1961 to 1962, DuPont, among 8 other companies such as
Dow Chemical Company and
Monsanto, were contracted under the government to manufacture
Agent Orange, a potent
herbicide used during the
Vietnam War. In 1962, DuPont applied for a patent on the explosion welding process, which was granted on June 23, 1964, under US Patent 3,137,937[123] and resulted in the use of the Detaclad trademark to describe the process. On July 22, 1996, Dynamic Materials Corporation completed the acquisition of DuPont's Detaclad operations for a purchase price of $5,321,850 (or about $10.34 million today).
1981 to 1999 In 1981, DuPont acquired
Conoco Inc., a major American oil and gas producing company, which gave it a secure source of petroleum feedstocks needed for the manufacturing of many of its fiber and plastics products. The acquisition, which made DuPont one of the top ten U.S.-based petroleum and natural gas producers and refiners, came about after a bidding war with the giant
distillery Seagram Company Ltd. Seagram became DuPont's largest single shareholder, with four seats on the board of directors. On April 6, 1995, after being approached by Seagram Chief Executive Officer
Edgar Bronfman Jr., DuPont announced a deal in which the company would buy back all the shares owned by Seagram. In 1999, DuPont spun off Conoco and sold all of its shares. Conoco later merged with
Phillips Petroleum Company. DuPont acquired the
Pioneer Hi-Bred agricultural seed company in 1999.
2000 to 2015 – Further growth, sales, and spinoff of Chemours DuPont ranked 86th in the
Fortune 500 on the strength of nearly $36 billion in revenues, $4.848 billion in profits in 2013. In April 2014,
Forbes ranked DuPont 171st on its Global 2000, the listing of the world's top public companies. During this time, DuPont businesses were organized into the following five categories, known as marketing "platforms": Electronic and Communication Technologies, Performance Materials, Coatings and Color Technologies, Safety and Protection, and Agriculture and Nutrition. The agriculture division,
DuPont Pioneer, made and sold
hybrid seed and
genetically modified seed, some of which produces
genetically modified food. Genes engineered into their products included
LibertyLink, which provides resistance to Bayer's
Ignite Herbicide/Liberty herbicides; the Herculex I Insect Protection gene, which provides protection against various insects; the Herculex RW insect protection trait, which provides protection against other insects; the YieldGard Corn Borer gene, which provides resistance to another set of insects; and the Roundup Ready Corn 2 trait that provides crop resistance against
glyphosate herbicides. DuPont had 150 research and development facilities located in China, Brazil, India, Germany, and Switzerland, with an average investment of $2 billion annually in a diverse range of technologies for many markets including agriculture, genetic traits,
biofuels, automotive, construction, electronics, chemicals, and industrial materials. In October 2001, the company sold its pharmaceutical business to
Bristol Myers Squibb for $7.798 billion. In 2002, the company sold the Clysar business to
Bemis Company for $143 million. In 2004, the company sold its textiles business, which included some of its best-known brands such as
Lycra (
Spandex),
Dacron polyester,
Orlon acrylic, Antron nylon and Thermolite, to
Koch Industries. In May 2007 the $2.1 million DuPont Nature Center at Mispillion Harbor Reserve, a wildlife observatory and interpretive center on the Delaware Bay near
Milford, Delaware was opened to enhance the beauty and integrity of the Delaware Estuary. The facility is state-owned and operated by the
Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC). In 2010, DuPont Pioneer received approval to market Plenish soybeans, which contain "the highest
oleic acid content of any commercial soybean product, at more than 75 percent. Plenish has no trans fat, 20 percent less saturated fat than regular soybean oil, and is a more stable oil with greater flexibility in food and industrial applications." Plenish is genetically engineered to "block the formation of enzymes that continue the cascade downstream from oleic acid (that produces saturated fats), resulting in an accumulation of the desirable monounsaturated acid." In 2011, DuPont was the largest producer of
titanium dioxide in the world, primarily provided as a white pigment used in the
paper industry. On January 9, 2011, DuPont announced that it had reached an agreement to buy Danish company
Danisco for US$6.3 billion. On May 16, 2011, DuPont announced that its tender offer for Danisco had been successful and that it would proceed to redeem the remaining shares and delist the company. On May 1, 2012, DuPont announced that it had acquired from
Bunge full ownership of the
Solae joint venture, a soy-based ingredients company. DuPont previously owned 72 percent of the joint venture while Bunge owned the remaining 28 percent. In February 2013, DuPont Performance Coatings was sold to the
Carlyle Group and rebranded as
Axalta Coating Systems. In October 2013, DuPont announced that it was planning to spin off its Performance Chemicals business into a new publicly traded company in mid-2015. The company filed its initial Form 10 with the
SEC in December 2014 and announced that the new company would be called
The Chemours Company. The spin-off to DuPont shareholders was completed on July 1, 2015, and Chemours stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on the same date. DuPont then focused on production of
GMO seeds, materials for
solar panels, and alternatives to fossil fuels. Responsibility for the cleanup of 171 former DuPont sites, which DuPont says will cost between $295 million and $945 million, was transferred to Chemours. In October 2015, DuPont sold the
Neoprene chloroprene rubber business to Denka Performance Elastomers, a joint venture of Denka and
Mitsui.
2015 to present – Reorganization and time as DowDuPont On December 11, 2015, DuPont announced a merger with Dow Chemical Company, in an
all-stock transaction. The combined company, DowDuPont, had an estimated value of $130 billion, being equally held by both companies’ shareholders, while also maintaining its two headquarters. The merger of the two largest U.S. chemical companies closed on August 31, 2017. Both companies' boards of directors decided that following the merger DowDuPont would pursue a separation into three independent, publicly traded companies: an agriculture, a materials science, and a specialty products company. • The agriculture business—
Corteva Agriscience—unites Dow and DuPont's seed and
crop protection unit, with an approximate revenue of $16 billion. • The materials science segment— to be named
Dow Chemical Company—consists of DuPont's Performance Materials unit, together with Dow's Performance Plastics, Materials and Chemicals, Infrastructure and Consumer Solutions, but excludes Dow's Electronic Materials business. Combined revenue for this branch totals an estimated $51 billion. • The specialty products unit—the entity today bearing the DuPont name—includes DuPont's Nutrition & Health, Industrial Biosciences, Safety & Protection and Electronics & Communications, as well as Dow's aforementioned Electronic Materials business. Combined revenue for Specialty Products total approximately $12 billion. Advisory Committees were established for each of the businesses. DuPont CEO Ed Breen would lead the Agriculture and Specialty Products Committees, and Dow CEO Andrew Liveris would lead the Materials Science Committee. These Committees were intended to oversee their respective businesses, and would work with both CEOs on the scheduled separation of the businesses’ standalone entities. Announced in February 2018, DowDuPont's agriculture division is named Corteva Agriscience, its materials science division is named Dow, and its specialty products division is named DuPont. In March 2018, it was announced that
Jeff Fettig would become executive chairman of DowDuPont on July 1, 2018, and
Jim Fitterling would become CEO of Dow Chemical on April 1, 2018. In October 2018, the company's agricultural unit recorded a $4.6 billion loss in the third quarter after lowering its long-term sales and profits targets. During 2018 DowDupont along with 90 additional
Fortune 500 companies "paid an effective federal tax rate of 0% or less" as a result of Donald Trump´s
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. In 2019, DuPont completed its spin off from DowDuPont and the company adapted its marketing and branding in order to establish a new identity that is "fundamentally different" from DowDuPont. The company published a list of sustainability commitments to be achieved by 2030. In February 2020, DuPont announced that it is bringing back Edward D. Breen as its CEO after removing former Chief Executive Marc Doyle and CFO Jeanmarie Desmond less than a year after they assumed their roles. Lori D. Koch, previously head of investor relations, assumed the CFO position. In November 2021, DuPont announced that it intended to acquire
Rogers Corporation in a deal valued at $5.2 billion. While the deal had been approved by many other regulatory agencies, due to
Chinese regulators prolonging the review, DuPont decided on November 1, 2022, to walk away from the deal. DuPont paid Rogers a termination fee of US$162.5 million. In May 2024, DuPont announced it would split into three publicly traded companies, separating its electronics and water businesses while continuing as a diversified industrial firm. CFO Lori Koch was named CEO effective 1 June 2024, as current CEO Ed Breen transitioned to executive chairman. The split is expected to be completed in 18 to 24 months. On January 17, 2025, DuPont shelved its plans to spin-off its water division which would be retained within DuPont. On August 29, 2025, DuPont announced that it had reached a definitive agreement to sell its
Aramids business —including the
Kevlar® and
Nomex® brands— to Arclin for approximately $1.8 billion; the transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals. The company spun off
Qnity Electronics in November 2025. == Operations ==