du Pont, Pierre Samuel (1870–1954)

US industrialist. He purchased a family explosives company and it amassed large profits. He then managed the struggling General Motors, introducing modern management, production, and marketing techniques that saved the corporation.

Born near Wilmington, Delaware, he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and joined his family's Delaware-based explosives company. Disenchanted with its lack of innovation, he left to join his cousin Coleman du Pont's street railway business. He purchased the family firm in 1902 in partnership with another cousin, Alfred du Pont, to prevent its sale to outsiders. As treasurer, he negotiated a series of takeovers and management and production reorganizations that concentrated the American explosives industry under du Pont's control. He developed new accounting practices, including financial forecasting and calculating rates of return on capital investment, that later became standard corporate practice. In 1914 he led the buyout of Coleman du Pont's share in the firm that provoked a generation-long family feud. He was president of the company through World War I (1915–19, chairman 1919–40). He retired in 1919 but soon assumed management of General Motors (president 1920–23, chairman 1923–29). In retirement after 1929 he created the extensive gardens on his Longwood estate and devoted millions of dollars to the improvement of Delaware's public schools.