Who Owns Eaton?

Eaton began in 1911 when Joseph Oriel Eaton II and Viggo V. Torbensen founded the Torbensen Gear and Axle Company in Bloomfield, New Jersey, to make truck axles for the young commercial vehicle industry. Eaton bought out Torbensen within a few years and led the company until his death in 1949, by which time it supplied axles and transmissions to most American truck makers.

The company moved to Cleveland in 1914, renamed itself Eaton Axle and Spring, then Eaton Manufacturing, and diversified steadily: springs, valves, locks, and industrial components. In 1963 it adopted the Eaton Yale & Towne name after an acquisition, and in 1971 became simply Eaton Corporation, reflecting how far it had moved beyond axles.

The modern Eaton took shape through two transformative deals. In 1994 it acquired Westinghouse's distribution and control business, catapulting it into electrical power equipment. In 2012 it bought Cooper Industries for about $13 billion, its largest acquisition, which added a full line of electrical products and, because Cooper was Irish-domiciled, provided the structure for Eaton to reincorporate in Ireland as Eaton Corporation plc while keeping its management base in Beachwood, Ohio.

Since then the company has deliberately reshaped its portfolio: it sold its hydraulics business to Danfoss in 2021 for $3.3 billion, exited lower-growth vehicle lines gradually, and bought into electrification, acquiring companies in switchgear, software, and EV power electronics. The strategy timed the data center boom well; electrical products now generate most revenue. Fiscal 2025 delivered a record $27.4 billion in sales and record earnings, with the electrical Americas segment alone at $13.3 billion.