Who owns Activision?

Short answer:
As of 2026, Activision (more precisely Activision Blizzard, including Activision Publishing) is fully owned by Microsoft Corporation, after a completed acquisition in October 2023 that made it a wholly owned subsidiary and removed it from the stock market.

Quick Scoop: Who owns Activision now?

  • Microsoft owns 100% of Activision Blizzard, including the Activision publishing label.
  • The deal was an all‑cash acquisition worth about 68.7 billion dollars, completed in October 2023.
  • After this, Activision stopped trading as an independent public company and became part of Microsoft Gaming (the division that also oversees Xbox and Bethesda).

In practical terms, that means Microsoft has full financial, strategic, and legal control over Activision’s studios, franchises, and technology stack.

How Activision fits inside Microsoft

  • Activision now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary and a core publishing label inside Microsoft Gaming.
  • The famous franchises you associate with Activision (like Call of Duty) are managed within Microsoft’s broader gaming ecosystem, alongside Xbox and other game studios.
  • Activision still uses its own brand identity in public (logo, marketing, game labels), but ultimate decision‑making power sits with Microsoft’s leadership.

A simple way to picture it: Activision is no longer a stand‑alone company with its own shareholders; it’s a big internal label under the Microsoft gaming umbrella.

Who’s actually in charge day to day?

  • At the top, Microsoft’s leadership and Microsoft Gaming’s CEO (Phil Spencer) set overall strategy for Activision and the rest of the gaming group.
  • Within the Activision label, executives like Rob Kostich (President of Activision Publishing) handle daily operations, franchises, and studio management, but within the framework defined by Microsoft.

So, if you’re wondering “who owns Activision” in the legal and financial sense, the answer is Microsoft and only Microsoft ; if you’re thinking about “who runs Activision games day to day,” that’s still largely Activision’s internal publishing and studio leadership, just reporting into Microsoft Gaming.

Mini timeline for context

  1. Before 2023:
    • Activision Blizzard was a publicly traded company on NASDAQ with many institutional and individual shareholders.
  1. October 2023:
    • Microsoft completes its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in an all‑cash deal, buying all outstanding shares.
  1. After the deal (2024–2026):
    • Activision Blizzard is delisted and becomes a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary, integrated into Microsoft Gaming.

Ownership snapshot (HTML table)

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Entity Current Owner Ownership Type Publicly Traded? Where it sits
Activision (publishing label) Microsoft CorporationWholly owned subsidiaryNo, not independentPart of Microsoft Gaming division
Activision Blizzard (holding company) Microsoft CorporationWholly owned subsidiaryNo, delisted after acquisitionIntegrated with Xbox, Bethesda, Blizzard, King under Microsoft Gaming
**TL;DR:** If you’re asking “who owns Activision” in 2026, the answer is simply: **Microsoft owns Activision outright, 100%, with no outside shareholders.**

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.