2026 Chevy Corvette Credit: GM
General Motors has hiked its prices and laid off thousands of workers
Sen. Warren: “GM needs to shift gears and reinvest in its cars and workers, not further enrich its executives and Wall Street investors”
November 14, 2026 - Washington, D.C. — This week, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pushed General Motors (GM) on its recently announced $20 billion stock buyback plan, raising concerns that the company is putting executives and shareholders ahead of workers and families. The buyback announcement comes after GM has raised prices and laid off thousands of American autoworkers during the second Trump administration.
“GM’s decision to prioritize investor profits over workers and American families, despite benefitting from President Trump’s tax giveaways and tariff exemptions and refunds, is deeply concerning—and a potentially a blatant example of how Trump’s policies have emboldened companies and left corporate greed unchecked,” wrote Senator Warren.
During the Trump administration, GM has laid off or furloughed thousands of salaried workers. These layoffs came even as the Trump administration announced tariffs supposedly meant to protect these very workers, and the company benefitted from Trump and Republican tax cuts for giant corporations: in 2025, GM paid an effective federal tax rate of 2.8%, while the average American mechanic pays more than double that rate. And after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s illegal tariffs, GM announced that it expected to receive a $500 million tariff refund. But GM opted to boost its own stock instead of lowering prices or investing this windfall in workers.
“GM should utilize its half billion dollar windfall to refund those same customers for the higher car prices they paid and invest in the workers that built those cars, not Wall Street financiers,” wrote the senator.
“Trump promised that his tax policies would boost auto jobs “at levels that you’ve never seen” and lead to construction of “thousands of factories… Instead, GM took Trump’s tax breaks and fired autoworkers in pursuit of its bottom line,” continued the senator.
Senator Warren urged GM to abandon its $20 billion stock buyback plan and reinvest in American autoworkers and manufacturing instead. To better understand GM’s recent stock buyback announcement, the senator requested a response to her questions by November 25, 2026.
Senator Warren has led the fight to protect American workers from the Trump administration’s disastrous trade agenda:
- In November 2026, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led her colleagues in urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate giant corporations that are pocketing tariff refunds after raising prices on consumers.
- In July 2026, at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) pressed U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on the Trump administration’s plans to refund the $166 billion in tariffs illegally collected from American importers, businesses, and consumers.
- In June 2026, Senator Warren (D-Mass) sent a letter to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) demanding answers on the Trump Administration’s delayed rollout of refunds for the $166 billion in tariffs illegally collected from American importers, businesses, and consumers.
- In June 2026, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) wrote to Secretary of Commerce (Commerce) Howard Lutnick, Secretary of the Treasury (Treasury) Scott Bessent, and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, asking them to explain the disappearance of tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs under the Trump administration, despite President Trump’s promise of a “manufacturing boom.”
- In June 2026, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) released a new report titled “10 Ways President Trump Has Hurt American Workers,” detailing how President Trump has broken his promises to workers.
- In April 2026, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) pressed U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on the Trump administration’s use of tariffs to help Big Tech evade regulations that keep users safe — all while these tariffs jack up prices for American families and further decimate the manufacturing industry.
- In February 2026, at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) called on the Trump Administration to use the upcoming joint review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to strengthen the agreement’s protections for American workers and consumers—rather than as an opportunity to secure giveaways for corporations and billionaires.
- In December 2025, Senators Warren (D-Mass.), Luján (D-N.M.), and Smith (D-Minn.) wrote to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer urging him to publish a complete written report outlining the administration’s objectives for U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) renegotiations and reveal whether giant corporations had influenced those trade priorities.
- In June 2025, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) led members of the Senate Democratic Caucus in writing to the Secretary of the Department of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, urging the department to preserve President Biden’s expansion of the overtime threshold.
- In February 2025, at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Warren (D-Mass.) questioned Mr. Jamieson Greer, then-nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, on his vision for Trump’s trade policy. Mr. Greer agreed with Senator Warren that large corporations have outsized influence on trade deals and that U.S. trade policy needs to ensure “American businesses and American workers are prioritized” and that any exemption program “needs to be transparent and have the rules outlined.”
Source: Senator Elizabeth Warren