Who Owns Huawei?
As Huawei has come under increasing scrutiny over the last several months, the question of who really owns and controls it has come to the fore. It is possible, for example, that the United States government has convinced the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that there is at least probable cause to consider some Huawei entities as “foreign powers” or “agents of a foreign power.” Huawei calls itself “employee-owned,” but this claim is questionable, and the corporate structure described on its website is misleading. A number of pertinent facts about Huawei’s structure and ownership are in fact well known and have been outlined many times in the Chinese media, but the myth of Huawei’s employee ownership seems to persist outside of China. This article, drawing on publicly available sources such as media reports, corporate databases, and court cases, aims to refute this myth once and for all.