Who Owns Google?

Google is owned by Alphabet Inc., its parent company since a 2015 restructuring. Alphabet is listed on NASDAQ, so it has thousands of shareholders — but it is not widely controlled. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin hold roughly 89.4% of the Class B shares, which carry ten votes each, giving them about 52.7% of the voting power on a far smaller economic stake. In the UK, Google UK Limited’s registered controller is Alphabet. Ownership verified 5 September 2026.

Who owns Google today?

Google LLC is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., incorporated in Delaware (registration 5786925). Google is not a public company in its own right and has not been since 2015 — the shares people mean when they say “Google stock” are Alphabet’s.

In the UK the operating company is Google UK Limited (03977902), incorporated on 20 April 2000 and registered at 1 St Giles High Street, London. Its person with significant control is recorded at Companies House as Alphabet, Inc., holding 75% or more of shares and voting rights.

Ultimate parent and corporate structure

Alphabet is the ultimate parent; nothing sits above it. Beneath it, Google is the largest subsidiary, alongside the businesses Alphabet calls Other Bets — Waymo, Verily and others — which were separated out from Google in the 2015 reorganisation precisely so they could be reported apart from it.

Google UK Limited is an operating subsidiary. It employs UK staff and files UK accounts, and it owns none of the group.

Major shareholders or controlling persons

This is where Alphabet differs sharply from a company like Amazon, and where most summaries go wrong.

Alphabet has three share classes. Class A carries one vote per share. Class B carries ten. Class C carries none at all. Page and Brin hold the great majority of the Class B stock — around 89.4% of it as of April 2026 — which converts to roughly 52.7% of total voting power.

The consequence is concrete: two individuals can carry any shareholder vote between them, including the election of directors and the sale of the company. Index managers such as Vanguard and BlackRock hold large economic positions and cannot outvote them.

So “Alphabet is owned by its shareholders” is true of the economics and misleading about control. The accurate statement is that Alphabet is a public company under founder voting control.

Official records and evidence

For the UK entity, Companies House is authoritative: company 03977902 records Alphabet, Inc. as controller, checkable directly.

For Alphabet itself the UK register holds nothing. The authoritative sources are SEC filings — the annual proxy statement for the share-class breakdown and beneficial ownership, and Schedule 13G filings for institutions above 5%. The voting figures above come from Alphabet’s own 2026 proxy disclosure and shift as shares are sold or converted.

Ownership history and changes

Google was founded in 1998 by Page and Brin and floated in 2004 — with the dual-class structure in place from the start, which is why founder control survived the IPO. Class C non-voting shares were introduced in 2014, allowing the company to issue stock without further diluting founder votes.

In 2015 Alphabet was created as a holding company above Google, and Google’s shares were converted into Alphabet shares. Both founders stepped back from executive roles in 2019 while retaining their Class B holdings — the reason they still control the company without running it.

Related companies and brands

Alphabet owns YouTube, Android, Google Cloud, Waymo, Fitbit, Nest and DeepMind among others. Several were independent companies before acquisition, which is why they still read as separate brands — YouTube was bought in 2006 and DeepMind, a British company, in 2014.

Each is a subsidiary of the same ultimate parent rather than an independent business, and each profile on this site states which company in the group actually holds it.