Who Owns Apple? shareholders and who controls it

Who owns Apple?

Apple Inc. is a listed company with no controlling shareholder 3. Its largest owners are asset managers that hold shares for clients, mostly through index funds 3. Vanguard Capital Management reported 1,099,168,953 shares, or 7.48% of the company, as of 31 March 2026 1. By our calculation that implies about 14.7 billion shares in issue 1.

Largest shareholders

Vanguard changed how it reports from 12 January 2026 2. Holdings now appear under separate units such as Vanguard Capital Management and Vanguard Portfolio Management, and The Vanguard Group itself reported zero shares 23. Added together, the two Vanguard units held more by value than BlackRock at 30 June 2026 3.

Berkshire Hathaway's stake

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway sold 10.3 million Apple shares in the last quarter of 2025, a 4.3% cut, leaving 227.9 million shares 4. MarketBeat valued the holding at about $62.0 billion (about ₹5.9 lakh crore) at the end of that period 410. Apple was still Berkshire's largest stock holding at 30 June 2026, ahead of American Express and Alphabet 5.

Founders and insiders

Ronald Wayne, one of the three founders, sold his share to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak for $800 twelve days after the company was founded 8. Jobs died on 5 October 2011 8. Directors and executives report their holdings in the annual proxy statement and in Form 4 filings 67. A Form 4 for Tim Cook, now executive chair, shows grants of 131,938 restricted stock units on 27 September 2026 7. No individual appears among the largest holders, and the sources reviewed do not give a current percentage for any person 3.

Buybacks shrink the share count

In the September 2026 quarter Apple returned $28 billion to shareholders, including about $24 billion of share buybacks and $3.9 billion of dividends 9. Buybacks reduce the number of shares in issue, so each remaining holder's percentage rises slightly 9.