Fact Check: Was General Electric sold to China? Who owns General Electric?

A Facebook meme was recently in circulation on the social media where it stated that the American company General Electric is going to be sold off to China for 5.4 billion dollars. The meme then asked the viewers a question stating "Americans are you concerned yet?" The Facebook post was shared by a user named Hal Downing, who posted the meme on December 23, 2020. However, the meme was circulated all over social media and is under the viewer's attention till now. Here is a fact check on whether General Electric was sold to China. Check out how the viewers seem to be reacting based on this rumour. 

Image credits: Facebook

Image credits: Facebook

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Was General Electric sold to China?

• According to the Fact Check analysis, the Facebook post is technically wrong.
• The truth is that the U.S. giant G.E. had actually sold off one of its subsidiaries called GE Appliances in 2016. The Chinese company Haier had then bought the General Electric Appliances division for 5.4 billion dollars. Since 2016, the GE appliances are owned by Haier. Haier can use the GE brand name until 2056 util their contract. 
• The point to be noted here is that the Chinese company Haier now owns one of the G.E.'s subsidiaries and not the entire company. As of now, there are no upcoming deals that state that the whole company is going to be sold off to the Chinese company. 
• Snopes indicates that the words written on the meme "Americans, are you concerned yet?", could be in reference to the conspiracy theories that indicate that there are some alleged connections between Biden and China. 
• Some other posts by the same Facebook user, who shared this Facebook meme even indicate that the user is using the medium to oppose Democrats, stating that they are owned by China. His posts also indicate that Biden won the presidential elections as the Democrats colluded with China and used Chinese-made ballots to lead to Biden's victory. However, there is no solid proof of the same and all of these are currently a part of the conspiracy theories. 

Image credits: Facebook

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Who owns General Electric?

The American multinational conglomerate company General Electric Company (GE) was founded by Charles A. Coffin, Elihu Thomson, Edwin J. Houston, Thomas Edison, and J. P. Morgan on April 15, 1892. The company is headquartered at Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. H. Lawrence Culp Jr. acts as the Chairman & CEO of the company. The conglomerated deals with a wide range of products from Aircraft engines, Electrical distribution, Software etc. 

Since GE was incorporated in 1896, it has been a publicly-traded company which is now traded on the New York Stock Exchange, this is where the investors buy and sell their GE stocks from. The Top 10 owners of General Electric company include stockholders such as T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., The Vanguard Group, Inc., BlackRock Fund Advisors, SSgA Funds Management, Inc., Fidelity Management & Research Co. LLC, Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC, Eagle Capital Management LLC, Geode Capital Management LLC, Northern Trust Investments, Inc. and Pzena Investment Management LLC.

Google Trends

According to Google Trends, the maximum number of people to have searched about whether General Electric was sold to China or not was the highest on January 5th. The Facebook meme has been circulated all over the internet as the Trends have skyrocketed in the few days. The current trends show that the people are still talking about the rumour. Check out this graph. 

Image credits: Google Trends

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