Signal is owned and run by the nonprofit Signal Foundation , which fully owns Signal Messenger LLC, the company that develops the Signal app.

Who actually “owns” Signal?

  • The Signal app is developed by Signal Messenger LLC, a software company created to build and maintain the Signal messaging service.
  • Signal Messenger LLC is wholly owned by the Signal Technology Foundation (often just called the Signal Foundation), a tax‑exempt nonprofit based in the United States.
  • Because it is a nonprofit, Signal has no traditional shareholders, no venture investors, and no ad-based business model; it is funded primarily by donations and grants from users and supporters.

Key people behind Signal

  • Signal was co-founded by cryptographer Moxie Marlinspike (Matthew Rosenfeld) and WhatsApp co‑founder Brian Acton.
  • In 2018, Acton provided an initial $50 million to launch the Signal Foundation and support Signal’s development.
  • Moxie Marlinspike served as the first CEO of Signal Messenger; he later stepped down, and Brian Acton moved into the CEO role after an interim period.

Why this ownership structure matters

  • Being owned by a nonprofit means Signal is structured to prioritize privacy and security over growth-at-all-costs or advertising revenue.
  • The Foundation describes its mission as making private, secure communication widely accessible, and all of Signal’s apps and clients are released as free and open‑source software, which allows independent review of the code.

TL;DR: Signal doesn’t belong to a big tech corporation; it is developed by Signal Messenger LLC, which is 100% owned by the nonprofit Signal Foundation, co‑founded and initially funded by Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Acton.

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