The above table is not an exhaustive list of top owners but a selection of owners who may be recognizable to readers. Some financial institutions not listed likely have a greater share of ownership than executives listed toward the bottom of this table.
Controlling ownership in TKO, and therefore WWE, is held by entities controlled by the private equity firm Silver Lake, which took Endeavor private in March 2025.
At the end of February 2025, TKO completed its acquisition of three former Endeavor businesses: Professional Bull Riders, On Location, and IMG. This transaction increased the portion of TKO equity held by Endeavor and, by extension, Silver Lake.
After that deal, Endeavor entities owned just over 60% of all TKO shares.
Endeavor, now a privately held company, is wholly owned and controlled by Silver Lake. Silver Lake itself is managed through affiliated entities, with voting control held by Silver Lake West VoteCo. Egon Durban, Silver Lake’s co-CEO, is the named individual with voting authority over the shares and serves on TKO’s board of directors.
In terms of TKO’s executive leadership, Ari Emanuel serves as the CEO and the Chairman. President and Chief Operating Officer, Mark Shapiro, though is the primary public face of the company. Under Shapiro, WWE’s President is Nick Khan. “Triple H” Paul Levesque is WWE’s Chief Content Officer, who is primarily responsible for what fans see onscreen.
As of September 2024, Vince McMahon — who used to hold controlling ownership of WWE until 2023 — still had about 4% of all TKO stock. In June 2025, he sold 1,579,080 shares to Endeavor for $250 million. Provided McMahon made no other transactions since the prior September, he would have 3% of all shares after the June transaction.
Stephanie McMahon and Linda McMahon hold smaller but valuable shares of ownership, at least as of the last time they had to make disclosures in 2023. It’s possible they’ve made transactions since then that have changed their amount of ownership. Their percentages of ownership is now likely too small to require future disclosures.
How WWE ownership was structured from 1999 to 2023, before the merger
Before the merger, WWE had an ownership structure that allowed Vince to control the company with a minority stake.
Since going public in 1999, WWE operated with a dual-class stock system, in which class B shares — which could be held only by Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon, and their descendants — carried ten times the voting power of Class A common shares available to other shareholders. This type of structure, which often allows founders to control a company despite holding less than half of all shares, is not unique to WWE. Similar stock structures have been used for some of the biggest companies in the world, including Facebook and Google.
In July 2022, Vince McMahon resigned, for the first of two times, amid multiple allegations of sexual misconduct and subsequent investigations by WWE’s Board of Directors and government agencies.
How Vince McMahon forced his return in 2023
At the time McMahon held just over one-third of all WWE shares. But thanks to his control via class B “super shares”, he held about 81% of the voting power. Even though he resigned from all of his executive and board member roles with the company on July 22, 2022, because of his voting power, WWE could still be subject to his whim if he chose — and, eventually, he did.
Vince decided to return to WWE in January 2023, with the justification that he was seeking to merge or sell the company. His voting power allowed him to effectively reinsert himself into WWE’s Board, bringing himself back as a board member as well as allies like former WWE executives George Barrios and Michelle Wilson. To make room for the new board members, he removed board members Jeffrey Speed (who oversaw the investigation into his conduct and WWE’s corporate culture), JoEllen Lyons Dillon, and Alan Wexler. More board members then voluntarily quit: Man Jit Singh and Ignace Lahoud. And even Vince’s daughter and then-co-CEO, Stephanie McMahon resigned in the days that followed. The remaining board members unanimously approved to reappoint Vince as the board’s Chairman. Surviving members of the board included sole-remaining CEO Nick Khan. Paul Levesque, too, stayed on the board, despite his wife Stephanie’s resignation.
In April 2023, WWE and Endeavor agreed to a merge WWE with Endeavor’s asset, UFC. The two combat sports companies were officially combined when the deal closed in September 2023.
Upon the closing the transaction, Vince and the rest of the McMahon family’s superior voting power was dissolved. Going forward, each of their shares count for one vote, like the equity of all other TKO shareholders.
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The TKO merger effectively removed McMahon family control of WWE for the first time since Vince and Linda McMahon turned the company into the dominant force in the pro wrestling industry in the 1980s.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was added to the TKO Board in January 2024 and received stock compensation as part of his agreement. By the end of 2025, he’s due to receive a total of 386,231 shares, which is worth tens of millions of dollars but is a fraction of 1% of all TKO shares.
Vince resigned a second time in January 2024, after a new lawsuit was brought against him and WWE by former employee Janel Grant. Vince no longer has the same path to return to the company that he used in early 2023. Without control of WWE/TKO, he can’t unilaterally comeback to the company. If he were to return, he would essentially need the cooperation of Endeavor’s leadership.
Endeavor now holds the majority of the voting power in TKO, with a greater than 51% stake in the company, and the same percentage of voting power. That majority percentage increased when Endeavor participated in stock purchases as Vince sold some of his TKO shares. Endeavor’s majority grew again following TKO’s acquisition of Endeavor assets Professional Bull Riders, IMG, and On Location, which Endeavor is selling to TKO in exchange for TKO stock.
Endeavor is led by Ari Emanuel, who serves as chief executive of both Endeavor and TKO. Endeavor essentially controls WWE and continues to control UFC. TKO Chief Operating Officer Mark Shapiro (who simultaneously carries the same title for Endeavor) oversees WWE’s top executives including WWE President Nick Khan, as well as UFC’s leadership including Dana White. Any stock that White may own hasn’t been disclosed and is likely no more than a small percentage of the company.
Notably absent from WWE’s ownership disclosures for about a decade before the merger is Shane McMahon. Vince’s son was a leading executive in the company until 2009. Public filings have shown no disclosure of WWE stock ownership by Shane since around 2013, indicating he likely hasn’t had material ownership since then. Shane was earlier gifted an equal amount of stock as his sister Stephanie throughout the years via a McMahon family trust. Shane seemingly liquidated all his WWE shares by 2014.
Like publicly-traded companies generally, major banks and other financial institutions own significant minority portions of TKO. Lindsell Train Limited, a UK investment firm, was the long-time biggest non-McMahon shareholder of WWE and continues to be one of the largest institutional investors in TKO. Other major institutional owners include Vanguard and Black Rock, which own a significant portion of many publicly-traded companies on the stock market. As part of disclosures required by the SEC, hundreds of other financial institutions routinely report TKO shares as among their investments.
Brandon Thurston has written about wrestling business since 2015. He operates and owns Wrestlenomics.