How big is GM's $20 billion stock buyback, and where does the money come from?
General Motors plans to spend up to $20 billion over several years buying back its own stock, about 28% of its stock market value at the October 19 close. GM announced the plan on October 20 with its third quarter 2026 results, after buybacks that had already cut its share count by about two in five since early 2023.
The short answer. GM, the maker of Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac, may spend the money over several years, with no deadline, and can stop at any time. For anyone who owns no GM stock, it shows how a carmaker can use spare cash, and GM has spent $29.5 billion on its own shares since early 2023. GM has not said how it will pay for the new plan, and we set it next to GM’s size, its past buybacks and its cash.
GM plans to buy back $20 billion of its own stock
On this page
- How big is GM’s $20 billion stock buyback?
- What is a stock buyback, and why is GM doing one?
- How much stock has GM bought back since 2023?
- Where does GM get the money for its stock buybacks?
- Does GM have to spend the whole $20 billion?
- What were GM’s third quarter 2026 earnings?
- How we counted
- Frequently asked questions
How big is GM’s $20 billion stock buyback?
Large, next to the size of GM itself. At the October 19 closing price, $20 billion would buy about 28 of every 100 dollars’ worth of GM shares. It is also larger than any of the four buyback plans GM announced before it since 2023.
GM was worth about $70.3 billion on the stock market at the October 19 close. That is its 849 million shares, the count in GM’s third quarter release as of September 30, times the $82.75 closing price in StockTitan’s data.
Show the data
| Part | Value | Share |
|---|---|---|
| The $20 billion plan | $20.0B | 28.5% |
| The rest of GM’s market value | $50.3B | 71.5% |
The price GM actually pays will be different, because it buys over months or years at whatever the shares cost on the day. So the 28% is a way to judge the size of the plan, and it says nothing about how many shares GM will end up cancelling.
The plan is also twice the $10 billion accelerated buyback of November 2023, when GM paid banks up front and got most of the shares at once. It is more than three times each of the $6 billion plans GM announced in June 2024, February 2025 and January 2026.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Nov 2023 (accelerated) | $10.0B |
| Jun 2024 | $6.0B |
| Feb 2025 | $6.0B |
| Jan 2026 | $6.0B |
| Oct 2026 | $20.0B |
The dividend, the cash GM pays its owners every quarter, gives one more yardstick. At the current rate of 18 cents a share each quarter, set in January, a year of dividends on 849 million shares would cost GM about $611 million. The buyback plan is about 33 times that.
What is a stock buyback, and why is GM doing one?
A buyback is a company paying cash for its own shares and retiring them. Afterward the company has less cash and fewer shares, so each share that is left stands for a bigger piece of what remains.
- Cash comes in GM’s car business brings in more cash than it spends on running and building the business.
- GM buys its own shares GM buys shares, usually on the stock market at that day’s price, sometimes through banks in one large deal.
- The shares are retired The shares it buys stop existing, so fewer shares are left and GM has less cash.
- Each share is a bigger slice The same profit is split among fewer shares, so each remaining share owns more of GM.
A company that makes more cash than it needs to run and grow the business can do several things with the extra. It can pay owners a dividend, pay down debt, keep the money in the bank, or buy back shares. GM pays a dividend every quarter, but its buybacks have been much larger. A year of dividends at the current rate costs about $611 million, while GM paid $6.0 billion for buybacks in 2025.
Mary Barra, GM’s chief executive, wrote in her letter to shareholders that the new plan “further demonstrates our Board’s commitment to creating even greater shareholder value.” In the same letter she said the company is confident in “the consistent, long-term growth of our earnings and cash generation”.
GM’s third quarter shows it. Its adjusted profit, a GM measure that leaves out some one-time costs, rose 21.7% from a year earlier. The same profit counted per share rose 32.2%, because it was divided among 8% fewer shares.
Put in cents, adjusted profit per share rose by 90 cents. Holding the profit fixed, about 30 cents of that rise came from the smaller share count, and the rest from higher profit.
| GM, third quarter | 2025 | 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adjusted profit for common shareholders | $2,694 million | $3,278 million | +21.7% |
| Average shares, counting those owed to employees (diluted) | 964 million | 887 million | -8.0% |
| Adjusted profit per share | $2.80 | $3.70 | +32.2% |
| 2026 adjusted profit spread over the 2025 share count | $3.40 | +21.4% |
Source: GM third quarter 2026 release, reconciliation of diluted earnings per share to EPS-diluted-adjusted; the last row is our calculation ($3,278 million divided by 964 million shares).
Take someone who has owned 100 GM shares since January 2023 and has bought no more. Back then those shares were 100 out of about 1.39 billion. Now they are 100 out of 849 million, so the same 100 shares stand for about 64% more of GM than they did.
Our guide to share buybacks and Rule 10b-18 covers the rules a company follows when it buys its own shares. Profit per share is also the number behind the price to earnings ratio.
How much stock has GM bought back since 2023?
A lot. GM has spent $29.5 billion on its own shares since the start of 2023, and the number of GM shares has fallen by about two in five over that time.
The biggest single step came in November 2023. GM handed $10 billion to a group of banks in an accelerated buyback and received most of the shares at once. GM had about 1.37 billion shares just before it, its release said.
After that GM kept buying on the open market. Its annual report for 2025 shows cash paid for buybacks of $11.1 billion in 2023, $7.1 billion in 2024 and $6.0 billion in 2025. In the first nine months of 2026 it paid $5.3 billion.
Added up, that is $29.5 billion since the start of 2023. The new plan on its own is about two thirds of that amount.
Show the data
| Category | Shares outstanding | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 2022 | 1,421M | |
| Jan 2023 | 1,395M | |
| Apr 2023 | 1,390M | |
| Jul 2023 | 1,376M | |
| Oct 2023 | 1,370M | |
| Jan 2024 | 1,154M | First count after the $10 billion buyback of November 2023 |
| Apr 2024 | 1,141M | |
| Jul 2024 | 1,124M | |
| Oct 2024 | 1,100M | |
| Jan 2025 | 995M | |
| Apr 2025 | 961M | |
| Jul 2025 | 952M | |
| Oct 2025 | 933M | |
| Jan 2026 | 904M | |
| Apr 2026 | 902M | |
| Jul 2026 | 878M | |
| Sep 2026 | 849M | September 30 count from GM’s release; earlier points are filing cover counts |
The share count fell from 1,394.6 million in January 2023 to 849 million at the end of September 2026, a drop of 39%. That is the change in shares outstanding. It already takes in the shares GM hands to employees as part of their pay.
| Date | GM shares outstanding | Where it is stated |
|---|---|---|
| January 18, 2022 | 1,453.0 million | Cover of the annual report for 2021 |
| January 17, 2023 | 1,394.6 million | Cover of the annual report for 2022 |
| January 16, 2024 | 1,154.4 million | Cover of the annual report for 2023 |
| January 16, 2025 | 995.0 million | Cover of the annual report for 2024 |
| January 15, 2026 | 904.0 million | Cover of the annual report for 2025 |
| September 30, 2026 | 849 million | Third quarter 2026 release |
| Period | Cash paid to buy back GM stock |
|---|---|
| 2022 | $2.500 billion |
| 2023 | $11.115 billion |
| 2024 | $7.064 billion |
| 2025 | $6.012 billion |
| January to September 2026 | $5.301 billion |
| 2023 to September 2026 | $29.492 billion |
Source: GM annual reports (cover share counts and the cash flow line “payments to purchase common stock”) and the third quarter 2026 release; the total is our sum.
Where does GM get the money for its stock buybacks?
GM has not said how it will pay for the new plan. Since 2023 its buybacks have equaled about $61 of every $100 of spare cash from its car business, as GM measures it. GM also holds a large cash pile.
GM’s own yardstick for spare cash is what it calls adjusted automotive free cash flow. That is the cash the car business brings in, minus what it spends on factories and equipment, with some items GM treats as unusual left out. On October 20 GM raised its forecast for 2026 to between $11.5 billion and $12.5 billion, up from $9.5 billion to $11.5 billion.
Show the data
| Category | Spare cash from cars, GM’s measure | Cash paid for buybacks |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $11.7B | $11.1B |
| 2024 | $14.0B | $7.1B |
| 2025 | $10.6B | $6.0B |
| Jan to Sep 2026 | $12.2B | $5.3B |
From 2023 through September 2026 that measure added up to $48.5 billion, and GM spent $29.5 billion on buybacks over the same stretch. At the middle of the new 2026 forecast, the $20 billion plan equals about 20 months of that spare cash.
GM’s plain cash flow statement, which includes the electric vehicle payments GM adjusts out, shows a smaller cushion this year. In the first nine months of 2026 the car business brought in $13.7 billion from its operations and spent $5.8 billion on plants and equipment.
Show the data
| From | To | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Cash from running the car business | Building plants and products | $5.8B |
| Cash from running the car business | Buying back its own stock | $5.3B |
| Cash from running the car business | Dividends paid line | $0.9B |
| Cash from running the car business | Left before other cash moves | $1.7B |
Of what was left, $5.3 billion went to buybacks and $0.9 billion went out on the line GM labels dividends paid. The gap between the two cash measures this year is mostly $4.2 billion of payments for scaling back electric vehicle plans. About $1.7 billion remained before other moves such as debt and investments.
GM also has savings to draw on. On September 30 its car business held $23.1 billion in cash and short-term investments, against $16.1 billion of debt. The release does not say how GM will split the $20 billion between new cash, savings or borrowing.
| GM car business, January to September 2026 | Amount |
|---|---|
| Cash from operations | $13,653 million |
| Less spending on plants and equipment | -$5,758 million |
| Left after that spending (our subtraction) | $7,895 million |
| Add back payments for the electric vehicle realignment | +$4,242 million |
| Add back other items GM adjusts for | +$46 million |
| Adjusted automotive free cash flow (GM) | $12,184 million |
| Year | Adjusted automotive free cash flow | Cash paid for buybacks |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $11.666 billion | $11.115 billion |
| 2024 | $14.045 billion | $7.064 billion |
| 2025 | $10.595 billion | $6.012 billion |
| January to September 2026 | $12.184 billion | $5.301 billion |
| Total | $48.490 billion | $29.492 billion |
| GM car business, September 30, 2026 | Amount |
|---|---|
| Cash and cash equivalents | $18,765 million |
| Marketable debt securities | $4,351 million |
| Short-term debt and current part of long-term debt | $878 million |
| Long-term debt | $15,270 million |
Source: GM third quarter 2026 release, automotive columns of the cash flow statement and balance sheet, and the free cash flow reconciliation. Its rows may not add because of rounding. Yearly figures: GM full-year releases for 2023, 2024 and 2025; buyback cash from GM’s annual reports.
Does GM have to spend the whole $20 billion?
No. The board has allowed GM to spend up to $20 billion with no end date, and GM can pause or stop at any time. It has not said how fast it will buy, other than calling the plan multi-year.
The release says the program “has no expiration date” and “may be suspended or discontinued at any time at the company's discretion.” It also says GM has finished the $6.0 billion plan it announced in January 2026.
For a sense of scale, $20 billion is a little over three years of buybacks at the $6.0 billion GM spent in 2025. GM has given no detailed buying schedule, and the share price on each day of buying decides how many shares the money retires.
What were GM’s third quarter 2026 earnings?
Better than a year earlier, led by North America. Revenue rose 2.9% to $50.0 billion, while its business outside North America and its car loan arm earned less.
Net income, the profit under standard accounting rules, was $3.3 billion, up from $1.3 billion a year earlier. GM’s adjusted profit before interest and taxes rose 21.6%, and in North America the same measure rose 43.4%.
The weaker spots were abroad and in lending. GM’s international business, its joint ventures in China and GM Financial, which lends to people buying GM vehicles, all earned less than in the third quarter of 2025.
For the full year, GM now expects adjusted profit before interest and taxes of $14.5 billion to $15.5 billion, a narrower range around the same $15.0 billion middle. Mary Barra wrote that GM is working to keep its momentum “despite growing inflationary pressures”.
| GM, third quarter | 2025 | 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $48,591 million | $50,015 million | +2.9% |
| Net income attributable to stockholders | $1,327 million | $3,335 million | +$2,008 million |
| EBIT-adjusted (GM measure) | $3,376 million | $4,106 million | +21.6% |
| GM North America EBIT-adjusted | $2,506 million | $3,592 million | +43.4% |
| GM International EBIT-adjusted | $226 million | $28 million | -87.7% |
| China joint venture equity income | $80 million | $32 million | -60.3% |
| GM Financial earnings before tax, adjusted | $804 million | $668 million | -16.9% |
| Adjusted automotive free cash flow | $4,201 million | $5,882 million | +40.0% |
| Diluted earnings per share | $1.35 | $3.73 | +$2.38 |
| EPS-diluted-adjusted | $2.80 | $3.70 | +32.2% |
| 2026 full-year forecast | Previous | Updated October 20 |
|---|---|---|
| EBIT-adjusted | $14.0 billion to $16.0 billion | $14.5 billion to $15.5 billion |
| Adjusted automotive free cash flow | $9.5 billion to $11.5 billion | $11.5 billion to $12.5 billion |
| EPS-diluted-adjusted | $12.00 to $14.00 | $12.75 to $13.75 |
| Net income attributable to stockholders | $8.4 billion to $9.8 billion | $8.9 billion to $9.5 billion |
Source: GM third quarter 2026 release, results overview and full-year outlook tables. The third quarter of 2025 carried $1,933 million of items GM excludes from its adjusted measure, $1,592 million of them for its electric vehicle realignment.
How we counted
Stock market value: GM’s 849 million shares on September 30, 2026, from its third quarter release, times the $82.75 close of October 19 in StockTitan’s price data. That gives $70.25 billion. The $20.0 billion plan divided by that is 28.5%. We write about 28%, because the share count in the release is rounded and GM may have bought more shares after September 30. StockTitan’s stored market value, which uses the older July share count, gives 27.5%.
Share count: the cover counts of GM’s annual reports and the release’s September 30 count; 849 divided by 1,394.6 is 0.609, a drop of 39.1%. The 64% bigger slice in the example is 1,394.6 divided by 849.
Share of spare cash: cash paid for buybacks from 2023 through September 2026 was $29.492 billion (GM annual reports and the release). Adjusted automotive free cash flow for the same span was $48.490 billion (GM full-year releases and the third quarter release). Dividing the buyback cash by that cash flow gives 60.8%. The two come from different lines of GM’s reports, so the ratio compares sizes only. GM does not tie buybacks to that measure in its release.
Months of spare cash: $20.0 billion divided by $12.0 billion, the middle of GM’s 2026 forecast, is 1.67 years, about 20 months. Dividend comparison: 18 cents times four quarters times 849 million shares is about $611 million a year.
Frequently asked questions
Why is GM buying back its own stock?
GM says the plan shows its board’s commitment to shareholder value, and Mary Barra wrote that GM is confident in the long-term growth of its earnings and cash. A buyback is one way a company hands spare cash back to its owners, next to a dividend.
How much stock has GM bought back?
GM paid $29.5 billion for its own shares from the start of 2023 through September 2026, by our sum of its reports. Its share count fell from 1,394.6 million in January 2023 to 849 million on September 30, 2026.
Is GM still paying a dividend?
Yes. GM declared a dividend of 18 cents a share, payable on December 17, 2026, to owners on record at the close of trading on December 4, 2026. Our guide to record dates and payment dates explains who receives it.
What does a stock buyback mean for GM shareholders?
Fewer GM shares are left, so each one stands for a bigger part of the company and of its profit. In the third quarter of 2026, GM’s adjusted profit per share rose 32.2% while the adjusted profit itself rose 21.7%, according to its release. The plan carries no promise about the share price, and GM can stop it at any time.
When will GM finish its $20 billion stock buyback?
GM has not said. The plan has no expiration date, and GM can pause or stop it at any time. Its previous $6.0 billion plan, announced in January 2026, was finished by the time GM released its third quarter results on October 20, 2026.
Where can I follow GM’s results and filings on StockTitan?
The GM overview page carries its news and filings, including the third quarter 2026 release, and the GM financials page shows its reported results by quarter.
Sources
- GM third quarter 2026 results and new $20 billion share repurchase authorization (StockTitan)
- GM $10 billion accelerated share repurchase, November 29, 2023 (StockTitan)
- GM new $6 billion share repurchase authorization, June 11, 2024 (StockTitan)
- GM new share repurchase plan including a $2 billion accelerated repurchase, February 26, 2025 (StockTitan)
- GM 2025 results and new $6.0 billion share repurchase authorization, January 27, 2026 (StockTitan)
- GM 2023 full-year results (StockTitan)
- GM 2024 full-year results (StockTitan)
- GM overview (StockTitan)
- GM financials (StockTitan)
- GM Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1, filed October 20, 2026 (SEC)
- GM Q3 2026 Letter to Shareholders, Mary Barra (GM Investor Relations)
- GM annual report on Form 10-K for 2025 (SEC)
- GM annual report on Form 10-K for 2024 (SEC)
- GM annual report on Form 10-K for 2023 (SEC)
- GM annual report on Form 10-K for 2022 (SEC)
- GM annual report on Form 10-K for 2021 (SEC)
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