Inside Milwaukee Tool: The American Brand That Got Better After America Lost It

Since 1951, more than one and a half billion Sawzall blades and hole saws have been made in the United States. The company behind that red logo has not been American owned since 1995. In the summer of that year, Atlas Copco of Sweden paid approximately $550 million for Milwaukee Electric Tool. Ten years later it sold the business to Techtronic Industries of Hong Kong. And then the strangest thing in modern American manufacturing happened: the tools got better. This is the story of a Wisconsin tool company that started in the wreckage of a factory fire, learned to build by repairing other people's broken tools, invented the reciprocating saw, earned its name on job sites for eighty years, and was sold twice by owners who never set foot on the floor. It is not a story about a ruined product. There is no cheapened warranty here, no plastic gear where a steel one used to be. Milwaukee Tool today employs more than 10,000 people in the United States and is building in Wisconsin faster than it has in a century. And every dollar of that value belongs to shareholders on the other side of the world. This is what $550 million actually bought. SOURCES Reuters via Journal of Commerce, "Sweden's Atlas Copco Purchases Milwaukee Electric Tool," June 21, 1995 Los Angeles Times, "Atlas Copco to Buy U.S. Tool Firm," June 22, 1995 Atlas Copco Group, "Milwaukee Electric Tool Announces Restructuring," October 23, 2001 Atlas Copco Group, "Atlas Copco sells its electric tool business to Techtronic Industries," August 30, 2004 Atlas Copco Group, "Atlas Copco completes divestment of its electric tool business," January 3, 2005 Techtronic Industries Company Limited, corporate history and 2025 annual results Milwaukee Tool official company history and U.S. manufacturing pages Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, Milwaukee Tool Wisconsin investment announcements, 2023 and 2025 Tools of the Trade, "Hall of Fame 2001" U.S. Patent 2,824,455, "Portable reciprocating saw," Ristow and Behlke, granted 1958 Wisconsin Historical Society, Milwaukee Electric Tool property record, 5316 West State Street Some claims in this video come from Milwaukee Tool's own published company history and are identified as such in the narration.