Who Owns WhatsApp?

WhatsApp is owned by Meta Platforms, Inc., which acquired it in 2014 for about $19 billion — the largest deal in Meta’s history. It is not an independent company and has not been for over a decade. Because Meta’s dual-class shares give Mark Zuckerberg roughly 61% of the voting power, WhatsApp is ultimately controlled by one person. Ownership verified 5 September 2026.

Who owns the WhatsApp brand?

WhatsApp is a service of Meta Platforms, Inc. (Delaware registration 3835815). There is no WhatsApp stock and no separate WhatsApp shareholder register.

In the UK the group entity is Meta Platforms Technologies UK Ltd (13792358), whose registered person with significant control is Meta Platforms, Inc., holding 75% or more of shares and voting rights.

Parent company and ultimate owner

Meta Platforms, Inc. is the parent and the ultimate owner. It was named Facebook, Inc. until October 2021 — the same legal entity under a different name, which is worth knowing when reading anything about the acquisition, since contemporary coverage all says Facebook.

Control sits with Zuckerberg through share class: about 99.7% of the Class B stock, ten votes per share, roughly 61% of voting power on around 13% of the economics.

Brand owner vs operating company

WhatsApp keeps its own brand and product, and end-to-end encryption gives it a genuine technical separateness from the rest of Meta — messages are not readable by the company in the way Facebook posts are. That technical distinction is real and often gets mistaken for a corporate one.

It is not a corporate distinction. WhatsApp has no separate ownership, and Meta has integrated it commercially over time — business messaging, payments in some markets, and account linkage across its apps. Encryption of message content and ownership of the service are different questions with different answers.

When the ownership changed

WhatsApp was founded in 2009 by Jan Koum and Brian Acton, both former Yahoo engineers, and acquired by Facebook in February 2014 for approximately $19 billion in cash and stock — at the time one of the largest technology acquisitions ever, for a company with about 55 employees.

Both founders subsequently left, in 2017 and 2018, with public disagreement over the direction of the product and its commercialisation. Acton went on to fund Signal, a competing messenger. Ownership changed in name only in October 2021 when Facebook, Inc. became Meta Platforms, Inc.

Related brands in the same group

Meta owns Facebook, Instagram (acquired 2012), Messenger, Threads and Reality Labs including Oculus. WhatsApp and Instagram both came in by acquisition and both kept their names and identities, which is the main reason users do not realise the three services share an owner.

All sit under the same parent and the same voting control.

Sources and verification

The UK relationship is from the Companies House PSC register for Meta Platforms Technologies UK Ltd (13792358).

Meta’s ownership is not recorded on any UK register. The authoritative source is its SEC filings, and the voting and economic percentages come from 2026 proxy disclosures. The $19 billion figure is the reported 2014 acquisition price, which varied with Facebook’s share price between announcement and completion. Companies House does not verify most filed information.