Who Owns YouTube?

YouTube is owned by Google, and Google is owned by Alphabet Inc. It has not been an independent company since Google bought it in November 2006 for about $1.65 billion. Because Alphabet’s founders hold roughly 52.7% of the voting power through Class B shares, YouTube ultimately sits under founder control rather than under its public shareholders. Ownership verified 5 September 2026.

Who owns YouTube?

YouTube LLC is a subsidiary of Google LLC, which is itself a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. (Delaware registration 5786925). There is no YouTube stock: the shares are Alphabet’s.

YouTube’s UK activity runs through Google’s UK structure rather than a separate YouTube company. Google UK Limited (03977902) records Alphabet, Inc. at Companies House as holding 75% or more of its shares and voting rights.

Parent company and ownership structure

The chain is three deep and each link is a different kind of thing:

1. YouTube LLC — the platform
2. Google LLC — its immediate parent
3. Alphabet Inc. — the ultimate parent and the listed company

YouTube keeps its own brand, leadership and product decisions, and that operational separateness is what makes people assume corporate separateness. It has none: no separate shareholders, no separate listing, no ability to be sold without Alphabet deciding to sell it.

Major shareholders or controlling interests

Ownership resolves at Alphabet, where the founders hold control through share class rather than share count. Larry Page and Sergey Brin hold roughly 89.4% of the Class B stock, which carries ten votes per share against Class A’s one and Class C’s none — about 52.7% of total voting power as of April 2026.

Index managers including Vanguard and BlackRock hold large economic stakes in Alphabet and cannot outvote them. So the honest answer to “who controls YouTube” runs past Google, past Alphabet’s shareholder register, and lands on two individuals.

Other media assets in the group

Alphabet’s media and platform holdings include YouTube, YouTube Music, YouTube TV, Android, Google Cloud and DeepMind. Within the media ownership section this makes Alphabet unusual: most parents here own publications or channels acquired from other publishers, whereas Alphabet’s dominant media asset is a platform hosting other people’s content rather than commissioning its own.

That is a real distinction for ownership questions. Alphabet owns the platform; it does not own most of what is on it.

Ownership history

YouTube was founded in February 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, and sold to Google in November 2006 for approximately $1.65 billion in stock — under two years from launch.

Ownership then moved once more without being sold: the 2015 Alphabet restructuring inserted a new parent above Google, so YouTube’s ultimate owner changed from Google to Alphabet without any transaction involving YouTube itself.

Sources and verification

The UK relationship comes from the Companies House register for Google UK Limited (03977902), which records Alphabet, Inc. as the person with significant control.

The Alphabet voting figures come from its 2026 SEC proxy disclosure, not from a UK record — no UK register covers the ownership of a US-listed company. Those percentages move as shares are sold or converted, and the acquisition price is the reported 2006 figure. Companies House does not verify most filed information.