A Facebook meme was recently circulating on social media stating that the US company General Electric is being sold to China for $ 5.4 billion. The meme then asked viewers a question with the words “Americans are you still worried?” The Facebook message was shared by a user named Hal Downing, who posted the meme on December 23, 2020. However, the meme has been spread all over social media and has so far been under the attention of the viewer. Here is a fact check whether General Electric was sold to China. Based on this rumor, see how the viewers react.
Image Credits: Facebook
Image Credits: Facebook
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Has General Electric been sold to China?
- According to the Fact Check analysis, the Facebook message is technically incorrect.
- The truth is that in 2016, the American giant GE sold one of its subsidiaries called GE Appliances. The Chinese company Haier then bought the General Electric Appliances division for $ 5.4 billion. Since 2016, the GE devices have been owned by Haier. Haier can use the GE brand name until 2056 to use their contract.
- The point to note here is that the Chinese company Haier now owns one of the GE’s subsidiaries and not the entire company. As of now, there are no upcoming transactions declaring that the entire company will be sold to the Chinese company.
- Snopes suggests that the words written on the meme ‘Americans, are you still worried?’, May refer to the conspiracy theories that indicate that there are some alleged links 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 the Democrats, declaring that they are owned by China. His posts also indicate that Biden won the presidential election, as the Democrats teamed up with China and used ballots made by China to lead to Biden’s victory. However, there is no solid evidence of this and all of these things are currently part of the conspiracy theories.
Image Credits: Facebook
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Who owns General Electric?
From March 2020, GE announced that H. Lawrence Culp is the Chairman and CEO of the company. In terms of General Electric sales, the company also sold one of its other subsidiaries that BioPharma dealt with in 2019 to Danaher. From now on, according to the investor website, the listed General Electric shares should not trade as an investment option for the shares. As the company is expected to grow randomly in 2021 after significantly improving its RS line. The company is expected to see good growth after the pandemic with the hope that Boeing 737 Max will fly again as well.
Google Trends
According to Google Trends, the highest number of people searching on January 5 was whether General Electric was sold to China or not. The Facebook meme was spread all over the internet as the trends skyrocketed within days. Current trends show that people are still talking about the rumor. Look at this graph.
Image Credits: Google Trends
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