[2] Among other notable accomplishments, he was among the founding board of directors of the Empire State Building which opened in 1931.

His great-great-grandfather, and namesake, was a French economist (who had been granted the ennobling suffix "de Nemours" after election to the Constituent Assembly) and patriarch of the du Pont family.

Du Pont de Nemours immigrated to America with relatives including his son, Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, who founded the DuPont company in 1802, and whose descendants would form one of the richest American business dynasties of the ensuing two centuries.

[5] He and his cousin Francis Gurney du Pont developed the first American smokeless powder in 1892 at the Carney's Point plant in New Jersey.

Most of the 1890s he spent working with the management at a steel firm partly owned by DuPont (primarily by T. Coleman du Pont), the Johnson Street Rail Company in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

In 1901, while du Pont was supervising the liquidation of Johnson Company assets in Lorain, Ohio, he employed John J. Raskob as a private secretary, beginning a long and profitable business and personal relationship between the two.

During World War I, the company grew very quickly due to advance payments on Allied munition contracts.

[11] In 1920, he became president of General Motors succeeding William C. Durant,[12] and resigned in 1923, when he was succeeded by Alfred P. Sloan Jr.[13] Pierre du Pont resigned the chairmanship of GM in response to GM President Alfred Sloan's dispute with Raskob over Raskob's involvement with the Democratic National Committee.

When du Pont retired from its board of directors, GM was the largest company in the world.

Du Pont, his relations and the DuPont corporation were generous benefactors over the years, and helped set up multiple endowments, fellowships, scholarships and faculty chairs for the university.

[22] Du Pont died nearly ten years later on April 4, 1954, at Memorial Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware.

[5] After a funeral held at Longwood, he was buried in the Du Pont family cemetery near the Brandywine River.

[30] Du Pont also donated $900,000 towards the construction and establishment of Kennett High School in 1924, equal to over $12.8M today.