In 1998, General Motors (GM) purchased the brand name from AM General and marketed three vehicles: the original Hummer H1, based on the military Humvee, as well as the new H2 and H3 models that were based on smaller, civilian-market GM platforms.

By 2008, Hummer's viability in the economic downturn was questioned. Rather than being transferred to the Motors Liquidation Company as part of the GM bankruptcy in 2009, the brand was retained by GM, in order to investigate its sale. No final deal was made, and in 2010, Hummer dealerships began shutting down. Ten years later in 2020, the nameplate returned, not as a separate brand but instead as two models, an electric pickup truck and SUV, to be sold under the GMC brand as the "GMC Hummer EV". The pre-production versions of the EV began November 2021 after to build a variety of all-electric vehicles in GM's Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant.