Who owns SiriusXM? Ownership structure explained (2026)

Few large companies changed hands as strangely as SiriusXM. For more than a decade, the satellite-radio operator was controlled through a Liberty Media tracking stock, an accounting structure that let John Malone's holding company track the economics of the Sirius stake without formally absorbing the whole business. In September 2024 that structure was unwound, and SiriusXM emerged as a standalone public company for the first time since Liberty took control in 2013.

The change did not hand the company to a diffuse public float. Instead, it left one investor towering over the register: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, which has spent since 2024 building a stake of roughly 37%. That makes SiriusXM one of the rare Nasdaq-listed companies where a single value investor, rather than a founder or a private equity sponsor, sits closest to control.

Understanding who owns SiriusXM means tracing three overlapping stories: the 2008 merger that created the only US satellite-radio company, the Liberty Media era that ran from a 2009 bailout to the 2024 split-off, and Berkshire's accumulation of a stake large enough to shape the company's future.

SiriusXM's legal parent, Sirius XM Holdings Inc., is headquartered at 1221 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. The operating business is the only satellite-radio provider in the United States, and it also runs the Pandora streaming service, which SiriusXM acquired in 2019, plus a growing podcast and advertising operation. Its subscription-first model is a useful contrast with the ad-and-subscription approach behind how Spotify makes money.

The current company traces to two predecessors. Sirius Satellite Radio began in 1990 as Satellite CD Radio, founded by Martine Rothblatt, while XM Satellite Radio grew out of American Mobile Satellite Corporation and launched service in 2001 under executives including Gary Parsons and Hugh Panero. The two loss-making rivals agreed to merge in 2007, and after a 17-month regulatory review the combination closed on July 28, 2008, creating Sirius XM Radio Inc.

In its most recent confirmed results, SiriusXM reported full-year 2025 revenue of $8.56 billion, down about 2% from the prior year, and net income of $805 million. It ended 2025 with 31.3 million paid self-pay and paid-promotional subscribers, and roughly 33 million total subscribers including free trials.

SiriusXM is publicly held. Its common stock trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market as SIRI, and as of the April 2, 2026 record date the company had 336,550,321 shares of common stock outstanding. The important structural change is recent: until September 2024, exposure to SiriusXM's economics was held largely through Liberty Media's Liberty SiriusXM tracking stock, so most public investors owned a Liberty security rather than SIRI shares directly. That is no longer the case. There is no controlling parent company and no Liberty tracking stock today.

SiriusXM has no meaningful founder ownership. The company is the product of a 2008 merger of two separate firms, and the individuals who founded Sirius and XM in the 1990s exited the businesses long before the current share structure took shape. Public filings do not attribute any material equity stake to a founder. Control of the register instead runs through institutional investors, led by Berkshire Hathaway, rather than through any founding family or individual.

Because SiriusXM reached its current form through mergers and a split-off rather than venture rounds, its ownership is best read as a sequence of control events rather than funding rounds.

Berkshire Hathaway is by far the largest shareholder. Warren Buffett's conglomerate held 124,807,117 shares as of the April 2, 2026 record date, equal to 37.1% of the class, a position it built up around and after the 2024 split-off. SiriusXM is a small line in Berkshire's portfolio, at roughly 1% of its equity holdings, but Berkshire's stake is large enough that its buying and selling moves SiriusXM's register more than any other holder does. The same conglomerate is also a huge owner of Apple, so Apple's ownership structure shares an anchor investor with one of satellite radio's music-streaming rivals.

The Vanguard Group and BlackRock are the next-largest institutional holders, owning SiriusXM primarily through index and exchange-traded funds that track the broad market. Their positions are passive, so unlike Berkshire they do not signal an active view on the company, but together they represent a meaningful block of the non-Berkshire float. Beyond these three, ownership is spread across other asset managers and retail holders.

SiriusXM has a single class of common stock and a classified board, with directors split into three classes serving staggered terms. There is no dual-class or super-voting structure giving insiders outsized control, so voting power tracks economic ownership. That is what makes Berkshire's 37% so consequential: it is real voting weight, not a minority economic interest sitting beneath a founder's controlling shares. It contrasts sharply with founder-led audio peers, a point clear in Spotify's founder-controlled ownership, where super-voting stock keeps control with the founders regardless of economic stake.

Jennifer Witz is chief executive officer and a director. She took the top job in January 2021 after nearly two decades at the company, having joined in 2002 and held senior roles across finance, marketing, and operations. She succeeded longtime CEO Jim Meyer.

The board is chaired by Gregory Maffei, the former Liberty Media president and CEO, whose long tenure links the current company to the Liberty era. Kristina Salen serves as lead independent director. The rest of the board reflects SiriusXM's media roots and its former Liberty ties, and includes Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, Airbnb executive Dave Stephenson, Tubi CEO Anjali Sud, Eddy Hartenstein, Evan Malone, and Jonelle Procope. Notably, Berkshire Hathaway, despite its 37% stake, does not hold a board seat, which distinguishes its position from a typical controlling shareholder.

SiriusXM has faced sustained legal pressure over how hard it makes canceling a subscription. The New York Attorney General sued the company, and a New York court found that its cancellation process, which funneled subscribers through lengthy retention scripts before letting them leave, violated the federal Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act. The company agreed to simplify cancellation for New York subscribers so they no longer have to speak to a live agent. The dispute mirrors a broader regulatory push against "negative option" and hard-to-cancel subscription designs.

Separately, SiriusXM agreed to a $28 million settlement over unwanted marketing calls, with eligible class members able to claim payments. Settlements of this kind are a recurring cost for subscription businesses that rely heavily on outbound retention and win-back marketing.

Berkshire's roughly 37% stake is not a legal controversy, but it is a governance concentration worth flagging. One holder that size can effectively block matters requiring a shareholder vote and heavily influence the outcome of any contested proposal. Investors who want to size the risks around a concentrated register and a subscriber base in slow decline can structure that thinking with a risk register template.

The end of the Liberty Media structure simplified SiriusXM in ways that matter to ordinary investors. For years, anyone who wanted exposure to the satellite-radio business mostly bought a Liberty tracking stock, a security whose value reflected the Sirius stake but carried Liberty's own discounts and complexities. Since September 2024, SIRI shares represent the operating company directly. That makes the equity easier to value, and readers who want to pressure-test the current $10 billion market capitalization against the company's cash flows can do so with an intrinsic value calculator.

Berkshire's presence changes the character of the stock. A 37% holder that neither runs the company nor sits on the board acts as a stabilizing anchor, but also as an overhang: the market watches every Berkshire filing for signs of buying or selling. For a business generating $805 million of net income on declining revenue, that ownership vote of confidence matters, though profitability itself can be examined more closely with an EBITDA calculator than a single net income line allows.

The ownership structure also shapes strategy. SiriusXM competes for listening time against ad-supported and subscription streaming, and its response has leaned on exclusive content and advertising through Pandora and podcasts. A concentrated, patient shareholder base gives management room to defend a mature subscriber business rather than chase growth at any cost.

Finally, the register is a study in contrasts with other media owners. Where a diversified conglomerate spreads control across many businesses, as in the way Sony is owned, SiriusXM now sits under one outsized financial investor whose incentives are those of a long-term value holder rather than an operating parent.

Jennifer Witz is the CEO of SiriusXM. She has held the role since January 2021 and has been with the company since 2002. Gregory Maffei chairs the board.

Yes. Sirius XM Holdings Inc. trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker SIRI. It became a standalone public company in September 2024, when Liberty Media completed the Liberty SiriusXM split-off and its tracking-stock structure ended.

The current company was created by the 2008 merger of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio. Sirius began in 1990 as Satellite CD Radio, founded by Martine Rothblatt, while XM grew out of American Mobile Satellite Corporation. No founder holds a material stake today.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is the largest shareholder, with 124,807,117 shares, or 37.1% of the stock, as of the April 2, 2026 record date. Index-fund managers Vanguard and BlackRock are the next-largest institutional holders. There is no longer a Liberty Media controlling stake.

SiriusXM went from a merger of two independent companies in 2008, to a Liberty Media rescue in 2009, to Liberty majority control in 2013, to a Liberty tracking stock, and finally to an independent public company after the September 2024 split-off. Since the split-off, Berkshire Hathaway has built a stake of about 37%, becoming the dominant shareholder.

SiriusXM's market capitalization was roughly $10 billion as of August 2026. The company reported full-year 2025 revenue of $8.56 billion and net income of $805 million.