Hughes Electronics was the child of Howard Hughes interest in aviation. Howard Hughes took over control of Hughes Tool Company in 1924 at the age of 19, after his father’s death and in 1932 he formed the Hughes Aircraft as a division of Hughes Tool Company, essentially to keep track of the expenses of his personal interest in flying and aircraft. His personal passion for flying and developing experimental aircraft established for Hughes a reputation as a test and racing pilot setting a number of speed records. His company won defense contracts during the war to develop high speed pursuit and reconnaissance aircraft and communication systems, most of which never went beyond prototypes and never entered production. Perhaps the most famous of these experimental prototypes was the HK- 1, better known as the ‘Spruce Goose’, the gargantuan wooden cargo plane that Hughes himself piloted on its brief and only flight of one mile, 70 feet above Long Beach Harbor in 1947. Also in that year, and of far greater and lasting importance, the Radio Department of Hughes Aircraft formally morphed into the Electronics Department, where the future of Hughes engineering lay.

Hughes had attracted a number of stellar engineers and scientists from Cal Tech to lead his research and development teams, but by 1953 most of his top management team had left, citing difficulties in working with Mr. Hughes. Because Hughes Aircraft at the time had a number of critical defense contracts the disruption in the corporate management caused great concern to the Secretary of the Air Force, who essentially gave Hughes an ultimatum that either he remove himself from the any personal role in the management of the company, or he would cancel all Air Force contracts with Hughes Aircraft.

So, in 1953 Hughes turned over ownership of the Hughes Aircraft Company to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. By this time Hughes Aircraft was dominated by electronics, the part of the company that engaged in the development and design of aircraft, and eventually helicopters, remained a subsidiary of the original Hughes Tool Company. In 1954 Pat Hyland took over control of Hughes Aircraft as Vice-President and General Manager and would lead the company for the next twenty-two years. Under Hyland’s direction Hughes Aircraft became a leader in avionics, developing radar, guided missiles, and missile and weapons guidance systems, the synchronous orbit communications satellite and the Surveyor Lunar aircraft. When Howard Hughes died in 1976 Hyland became the company’s president and CEO.

In 1985 Hughes Aircraft was sold to General Motors, and became GM-Hughes Electronics Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors. During the 1980’s and 90’s Hughes Electronics pioneered in telecommunications and satellite and network systems. In 1994 Hughes launched DirecTV in Jacksonville, Mississippi, and in 1995 DirecTV went global.

the late 1990’s the various Hughes companies had gone through realignments, reorganizations, mergers and spin-offs. Space and Communications was sold to Boeing, Hughes Helicopter to McDonnell –Douglas, Delco Electronics to General Motors Delphi Automotive. The Summa Corporation, a holding company formed in 1972 to manage Hughes remaining investments, now primarily developed and managed the Hughes huge real estate holdings on the west side of the Las Vegas Valley. GM-Hughes Electronics became simply Hughes Electronics in 1995 and concentrated on consumer satellite service, DirecTV, DirectPC, and Spaceway, a broadband satellite system.

In 2001 Hughes Electronics became the object of as protracted but unsuccessful hostile takeover bid by Rupert Murdoch who intended to merge Hughes with his News Corporation’s projected Sky Global Networks television business. General Motors in a counter move tried to sell Hughes to DirecTV’s U.S. rival Echo Star but the sale was blocked by federal regulators. In April 2003 Murdoch succeeded in acquiring Hughes Electronics, renamed DirecTV, which became a division of Fox Entertainment Group