# Who Owns AI? Who Owns OpenAI, Anthropic, Scale AI, Harvey, Character.AI and the Rest > No one owns AI: a handful of companies make the big models, and most of them are private. Here's who owns or controls OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Scale AI, Harvey, Character.AI and more, their latest valuations, and which ones you can buy stock in, from each company's own announcements. By Pat Simmons · November 8, 2026 · 12 min read Canonical: https://www.aiformortals.co/blog/who-owns-ai No one owns AI. The big models come from a handful of companies, and most of them are private. OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, is controlled by the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation, which holds 26% of the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC. Microsoft holds about 27% of OpenAI Group, a stake it valued at about $135 billion on October 28, 2025. Anthropic, which makes Claude, is a Delaware public benefit corporation whose Long-Term Benefit Trust elects part of its board. Google (Gemini), Meta (Meta AI) and Microsoft (Copilot) are public companies, listed on Nasdaq, so anyone can buy their shares. Among the smaller names people search for, Meta holds a minority stake in Scale AI, Harvey raised $550M at a $15.5B valuation in September 2026, and Character.AI is being sold through a court-run Chapter 11 auction in which Disney is the opening bidder for some of its assets. Last checked November 8, 2026: every stake, valuation and date below comes from the company's own announcement, its investor page or the SEC's ticker list, opened that day and linked where it's stated. Valuations go stale fast, so each one carries the month it was set. This page is about who owns the companies; who owns the text or images an AI makes for you is a separate legal question it doesn't cover. CompanyBest-known productWho owns or controls itPublic or privateLatest valuation or stake (date) OpenAIChatGPTOpenAI Foundation (nonprofit) controls it and holds 26%; Microsoft holds about 27%PrivateFoundation's 26% worth about $130B; Microsoft's stake about $135B (Oct 2025) AnthropicClaudeIts stockholders, with a Long-Term Benefit Trust that elects part of the boardPrivate$965B post-money (May 2026) Google (Alphabet)GeminiShareholders of AlphabetPublic, Nasdaq: GOOGL, GOOGPublicly traded MetaMeta AIShareholders of Meta PlatformsPublic, Nasdaq: METAPublicly traded MicrosoftCopilotShareholders of MicrosoftPublic, Nasdaq: MSFTPublicly traded xAIGrokSpaceX, which acquired itNot stated in SpaceX's announcementNot disclosed in the acquisition note (Feb 2026) Scale AIAI training dataIts shareholders; Meta holds a minority stakePrivateOver $29B (June 2025) HarveyLegal AIIts co-founders and venture investorsPrivate$15.5B (Sep 2026) Character.AIAI character chatCharacter Technologies, Inc., now selling its assets in Chapter 11PrivateNot disclosed; auction December 1, 2026 Z.aiGLM modelsTraces its roots to ZhipuAI, founded in 2019; owners not statedNot stated by the companyNot disclosed ExaSearch for AI agentsIts founders and venture investorsPrivate$2.2B (May 2026) Stability AIStable Audio and other creative AI modelsIts investors, under CEO Prem AkkarajuPrivateNot disclosed; $232M raised in total (Aug 2026) LangChainTools for building AI agentsIts founders and venture investorsPrivate$1.25B (Oct 2025) GammaAI slides and docsIts founders and venture investorsPrivate$2.1B, per its About page (checked Nov 2026) "Not disclosed" means the company's own pages didn't state it when we checked. For what each of these companies makes and ships week to week, see every AI company explained in plain English. ## Who owns OpenAI and ChatGPT? A nonprofit, the OpenAI Foundation, controls OpenAI and owns about a quarter of it. ChatGPT is made by OpenAI Group PBC, the for-profit company, and OpenAI says the Foundation "continues to control the OpenAI Group" and appoints every member of its board. The current setup dates from October 28, 2025. That day OpenAI completed its recapitalization, the deal that turned the nonprofit into the OpenAI Foundation and the for-profit into a public benefit corporation, a company legally required to pursue its stated mission alongside profit. _OpenAI's own statement of the Foundation's 26% stake. Screenshot of openai.com/our-structure, November 8, 2026, red box ours._ The Foundation holds a 26% stake worth about $130 billion, plus a warrant that hands it more shares if OpenAI Group's share price rises more than tenfold after 15 years. OpenAI says that makes the Foundation "the single largest long-term beneficiary" of the company. Microsoft is the other big owner. On the day of the recapitalization, Microsoft said it holds an investment in OpenAI Group PBC valued at approximately $135 billion, roughly 27% once every owner is counted: employees, investors and the Foundation. Leaving out the effect of OpenAI's recent funding rounds, Microsoft's stake was 32.5%. _Microsoft's own figure for its OpenAI stake. Screenshot of Microsoft's October 28, 2025 post, red box ours._ The rest belongs to OpenAI's employees and other investors. OpenAI says all of them now hold the same type of ordinary stock, so every holder gains in proportion as the company's value grows. Our Copilot vs ChatGPT guide compares the two companies' assistants and what each costs. For the products themselves, see what OpenAI makes. ## Was OpenAI made by Elon Musk? Musk didn't make OpenAI on his own: he was part of it from the start, and he left in 2018. OpenAI's own account, published March 5, 2024, says Greg Brockman and Sam Altman planned the first fundraising in late 2015, and Musk urged them to announce a $1 billion funding commitment. In the end the nonprofit raised less than $45 million from Musk and more than $90 million from other donors. When OpenAI decided in late 2017 that it needed a for-profit arm, OpenAI says Musk wanted majority equity, initial board control and the CEO job, then suggested merging OpenAI into Tesla. The two sides didn't agree, and Musk left in late February 2018. OpenAI wrote that page in response to a lawsuit Musk later filed against the company. ## Who owns Anthropic, Gemini, Meta AI and Grok? Anthropic is owned by its stockholders, and Google, Meta and Microsoft are public companies owned by whoever holds their shares. Grok's maker, xAI, now belongs to SpaceX. Anthropic (Claude) Anthropic is a private company with a governance setup of its own. It is a Delaware public benefit corporation, which lets its directors weigh the company's public benefit purpose alongside stockholders' financial interests. A separate Long-Term Benefit Trust of five trustees with no financial stake in Anthropic holds a special class of stock, Class T, that lets it elect and remove some board members; in 2023 Anthropic said the Trust would elect a majority of the board within four years. Its most recent valuation comes from its May 28, 2026 funding round. Anthropic raised $65 billion at a $965 billion post-money valuation, led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital, and the round includes $15 billion of earlier commitments from cloud companies, $5 billion of it from Amazon. Amazon's investment goes back to September 2023, when Anthropic announced that Amazon would invest up to $4 billion. Part of Anthropic is set aside for public causes. On October 18, 2026, Anthropic said it is committing 5% of its shares to a new Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, subject to stockholder approval, and that with its co-founders' pledge to donate 80% of their equity and its employee giving program, roughly 20% of Anthropic's shares will be dedicated to the public good. Our post on Claude's Personal Finance feature shows the kind of thing the company is shipping, and what Anthropic makes lists the rest. Google, Meta and Microsoft (Gemini, Meta AI, Copilot) These three AI makers are public companies, so their owners are their shareholders. Alphabet, Google's parent company, trades on Nasdaq as GOOGL and GOOG, Meta Platforms as META and Microsoft as MSFT, according to the SEC's list of company tickers and exchanges. Each one publishes its results on its own investor site: Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft. xAI (Grok) SpaceX owns xAI. On February 2, 2026, xAI posted that "SpaceX announced today that it has acquired xAI," and SpaceX's own update says it acquired xAI to combine AI with its rockets and Starlink satellite internet. The x.ai site is now signed "SpaceX Super Intelligence LLC" and calls the business SpaceXSI. Neither announcement gives a price. For what Grok's agent can do now, see our post on Grok Bot making phone calls for you. ## Who owns Scale AI, and what is it worth? Scale AI is a private company owned by its shareholders, and Meta owns a minority of it. On June 12, 2025, Scale announced an investment from Meta Platforms that valued Scale at over $29 billion. Scale says that after the deal "Meta will hold a minority of Scale's outstanding equity," and that Scale "remains an independent leader in AI." The deal also moved Scale's founder. Alexandr Wang joined Meta to work on its AI efforts and stayed on Scale's board, and the board named Chief Strategy Officer Jason Droege interim CEO. Scale used part of Meta's money to pay its existing shareholders and vested employees, who kept their stakes in the company. ## Who owns Harvey AI, and what is its valuation? Harvey is a private legal AI company owned by its co-founders and venture investors, and it was valued at $15.5 billion in September 2026. On September 9, 2026, Harvey announced a $550 million round at a $15.5 billion valuation, co-led by Diffusion and Lightspeed Venture Partners. _Harvey's funding announcement. Screenshot of harvey.ai, November 8, 2026, red box ours._ Existing investors Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, a16z, Coatue, Conviction, Elad Gil, Evantic, GIC, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Verified Capital and WNDR joined the round, and Diffusion, Lightspeed, Sapphire Ventures and Whale Rock came in as new investors. Harvey's co-founders are Winston Weinberg and Gabe Pereyra. Harvey says 80% of the 100 biggest US law firms (the Am Law 100) use it. More on its products is on our Harvey page. ## Who owns Character.AI now? Character.AI's own company, Character Technologies, Inc., still owns it, but it is selling all or most of its assets through a bankruptcy court, and the auction is December 1, 2026. Character.AI filed for voluntary Chapter 11 on October 12, 2026 to run a court-supervised sale, citing "significant legal, regulatory, and operational headwinds." Disney has the opening bid. Under the court-approved sale plan, Disney Worldwide Services, Inc. is the "stalking horse" for a set of assets called the "Disney Target Assets", meaning its offer sets the opening bid that others can beat. The transaction notice sets bids due November 24, 2026 at 12:00 p.m. ET, the auction on December 1, 2026, and the court's sale hearing on December 3 and 4, 2026. _The court-approved notice naming Disney as stalking horse for the "Disney Target Assets". Screenshot of Character.AI's transaction notice, November 8, 2026, red box ours._ The app is still running. Character.AI says the platform "remains up and running", paid subscriptions stay active with billing unchanged, and it expects the sale to finish by the end of November or early December 2026. It also says it hopes a buyer will keep the platform going, and that if no workable bid comes in, the platform will be wound down. Character.AI hasn't published a valuation. The latest on the app is on what Character.AI is. ## Who owns Z.ai, Exa, Stability AI, LangChain and Gamma? Exa, Stability AI, LangChain and Gamma are private companies that name their investors in their own funding posts. Z.ai doesn't say who owns it. Z.ai (GLM models) Z.ai is the company behind the GLM models and the chat app on z.ai. Its company page traces it to ZhipuAI, founded in 2019 out of Tsinghua University research, but it doesn't name owners, a parent company or a stock listing, so we can't state one. Z.ai released GLM-5.2 on June 16, 2026 as open weights under the MIT License, which means anyone can download and run the model, and has since released GLM-5.3. Pat Simmons put GLM 5.2 up against other models in two videos, "Is GLM 5.2 ACTUALLY Better Than Opus 4.8? (Full Breakdown)" and "GLM 5.2 vs Kimi K3: Which Open Source Model Wins?", embedded below. Exa (search for AI) Exa is owned by its founders and venture investors and was valued at $2.2 billion in May 2026. On May 20, 2026, Exa raised $250 million at a $2.2 billion valuation, led by a16z. That followed an $85 million Series B led by Benchmark at a $700 million valuation in September 2025 and $22 million in seed and Series A funding led by Lightspeed in July 2024. On October 13, 2026, CEO and co-founder Will Bryk said Exa had passed $100 million in annualized revenue. Stability AI (creative AI models) Stability AI is owned by its investors and hasn't published a valuation. On August 25, 2026, it announced a $76 million Series B that brought its total funding to $232 million under CEO Prem Akkaraju, who took over in June 2024. New investors include Electronic Arts, Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and AMD Ventures, alongside earlier backers such as Coatue, Greycroft, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sean Parker and Eric Schmidt. LangChain (tools for building AI agents) LangChain is owned by its founders and venture investors. It started as Harrison Chase's side project in late 2022, and he and co-founder Ankush Gola turned it into a company in early 2023. In October 2025, LangChain raised $125 million at a $1.25 billion valuation, led by IVP with Sequoia, Benchmark, Amplify, CapitalG and Sapphire Ventures. Gamma (AI presentations) Gamma is owned by its founders and venture investors. Its About page says it is valued at $2.1 billion, with $100 million in annual recurring revenue and 100 million users, and lists Accel, Afore, a16z, Script Capital, South Park Commons and Uncork among its backers. The page doesn't say when that valuation was set; it also links an interview with founder Grant Lee. ## Can you buy stock in AI companies? You can buy stock only in the public ones. Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG), Meta (META) and Microsoft (MSFT) trade on Nasdaq, according to the SEC's ticker list, and so does Amazon (AMZN), one of Anthropic's investors. OpenAI, Anthropic, Scale AI, Harvey, Exa, Stability AI, LangChain and Gamma are private, and none of their own announcements above mention a stock listing. xAI is part of SpaceX, and Z.ai doesn't state its ownership. This page lists who owns what; it isn't investment advice. On size, the largest private valuation on this page is Anthropic's $965 billion from May 2026. OpenAI hasn't published an overall valuation on the pages we checked; its Foundation's 26% stake was worth about $130 billion in October 2025. ## Questions people ask Does Microsoft own OpenAI? Microsoft owns part of OpenAI. It holds about 27% of OpenAI Group PBC, and the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation controls the company. Is OpenAI a nonprofit? OpenAI is both a nonprofit and a company. The OpenAI Foundation is a nonprofit, and it controls the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC, which sells ChatGPT. Does Amazon own Anthropic? Amazon is an investor in Anthropic. It put $5 billion into Anthropic's May 2026 round, and Anthropic is governed by its board and its Long-Term Benefit Trust. Does Meta own Scale AI? Meta holds a minority stake in Scale AI, and Scale says it remains independent. Did Disney buy Character.AI? Disney hasn't bought it. Disney is the stalking-horse bidder for the "Disney Target Assets", and the auction is December 1, 2026. Is Character.AI shutting down? The company says the platform remains up and running during the sale. Who owns Grok? Grok is made by xAI, which SpaceX acquired in February 2026. Who founded Harvey AI? Harvey was founded by Winston Weinberg and Gabe Pereyra, its co-founders. Who is the CEO of Stability AI? Prem Akkaraju has been Stability AI's CEO since June 2024. Who founded LangChain? Harrison Chase built it, and he started the company with co-founder Ankush Gola in early 2023. Who is behind Z.ai? Z.ai's company page traces it to ZhipuAI, founded in 2019 from Tsinghua University research. ## Sources - OpenAI: Our structure (checked November 8, 2026) - OpenAI: Built to benefit everyone - OpenAI: OpenAI and Elon Musk - Microsoft: The next chapter of the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership - Anthropic: The Long-Term Benefit Trust - Anthropic: Series H funding - Anthropic: Expanding access to safer AI with Amazon - Anthropic: Investing in the public benefit - xAI: xAI joins SpaceX - SpaceX: Updates - SEC: Company tickers and exchanges - Scale AI: Next phase of company evolution - Harvey: Harvey raises $550M at a $15.5B valuation - Character.AI: An update on Character.AI - Character.AI: Chapter 11 update and transaction notice - Z.ai: About - Exa: Series C - Exa: $100M in annualized revenue - Stability AI: Series B - LangChain: Series B - Gamma: About