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Outlet profile

Deere & Company

U.S. publicly traded industrial corporation — not a media outlet

Owned byPublicly traded on NYSE (ticker: DE). No single controlling owner; largest individual shareholder is Cascade Investment LLC (associated with Bill Gates), holding roughly 10–11% of shares. Institutional investors — led by Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street — collectively control approximately 76% of outstanding shares.
FundingRevenue from equipment sales (agricultural, construction, and forestry machinery) and a financial-services arm (John Deere Financial) that provides loans and leases to customers and dealers. FY2025 net sales were approximately $38.9 billion.
On the administrationmixed

Background

John Deere, a Vermont-born blacksmith, invented a self-scouring steel plow in Grand Detour, Illinois in 1837 that could cut through Midwest prairie soil without clogging. He moved the operation to Moline, Illinois in 1848 to access better transportation, and the firm was formally incorporated as Deere & Company in 1868. The company entered the tractor market in 1918 by acquiring the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company, and through the 20th century expanded into construction and forestry equipment while building a global dealer network. Deere went public and today trades on the New York Stock Exchange with no founder-family or government stake; its governance follows a standard one-share-one-vote structure. In the 2010s and 2020s, Deere invested heavily in precision-agriculture technology, including GPS-guided equipment and autonomous machinery, positioning itself as a technology company as well as a hardware maker. The second Trump administration created significant financial headwinds: the president threatened Deere with 200% tariffs in 2024 if it shifted manufacturing to Mexico, and broad import tariffs beginning in 2025 added roughly $600 million in direct costs that fiscal year. Deere lobbied for and received partial relief in June 2026, when the administration reduced farm-equipment tariffs to 15%.

Sources

  1. Deere & Company Ownership: 1837, 1868, 2026 Explained – Pestel-analysis.com
  2. Who Owns Deere & Company? – GrowthShareMatrix.com
  3. DE – Institutional Ownership Summary | Fintel
  4. Deere & Company | History, Tractor, Farm Machinery, & Facts | Britannica Money
  5. Trump threatens Deere with 200% tariffs if it shifts manufacturing to Mexico | Supply Chain Dive
  6. Trump cuts tariffs on tractors, combines, other farm equipment | Capital Press
  7. Deere forecasts weak annual profit on tariff hit | BNN Bloomberg
  8. DEERE & CO – Form 10-K – FY2025 | SEC

Profile compiled 2026-09-01; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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