Key takeaways
- General Motors Company is the publicly traded parent (NYSE: GM); General Motors LLC, its Delaware operating subsidiary, is the registered owner of the CADILLAC trademark (Reg. No. 647241).
- No shareholder controls GM outright. BlackRock, Inc. held 8.3% and State Street Corporation held 5.2% as of GM's April 2026 proxy, the only two holders over the 5% disclosure threshold.
- The CADILLAC mark's USPTO assignment history shows 13 recorded transactions since 2009, including a name change to "Motors Liquidation Company" on July 9, 2009, one day before the mark was assigned to the newly formed General Motors Company.
- Cadillac has no standalone U.S. operating subsidiary. GM's FY2025 10-K lists only two Cadillac-named legal entities: Cadillac Europe GmbH (Switzerland) and TWG Cadillac Formula 1 Team Holdings, LLC (Delaware).
- General Motors acquired the original Cadillac Automobile Company for $4.5 million on July 29, 1909, according to GM's own history and contemporaneous reporting.
- Cadillac's newest "ownership" wrinkle is on a racetrack, not a balance sheet: the Cadillac Formula 1 team that debuted for the 2026 season is majority controlled by TWG Motorsports, not GM.
This article is based on primary sources: General Motors' DEF 14A definitive proxy statement filed in April 2026 (ownership percentages), GM's FY2025 Form 10-K, Exhibit 21 (subsidiary structure), and USPTO's TSDR record for Reg. No. 647241, CADILLAC (trademark assignment history). Full source list at the bottom.
Who owns Cadillac right now?
The trivia answer is General Motors, and that has been true since 1909. The structure answer takes one more step. Cadillac is not incorporated on its own. It is a brand line inside General Motors LLC, the Delaware limited liability company that functions as GM's core U.S. operating subsidiary and is listed as the current owner of record for the CADILLAC trademark in USPTO's Trademark Status and Document Retrieval (TSDR) system.
General Motors LLC is, in turn, wholly owned by General Motors Company, the Delaware corporation that has traded on the New York Stock Exchange as GM since its November 2010 initial public offering. General Motors Company is publicly held. According to its own April 2026 definitive proxy statement, based on 901,656,578 shares outstanding as of April 6, 2026, only two investors crossed the 5% beneficial ownership disclosure threshold:
| Layer | Entity | What it holds | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public shareholder | BlackRock, Inc. | 74,909,069 shares (8.3%) | Schedule 13G/A filed Apr. 17, 2025, reporting shares as of Mar. 31, 2025 |
| Public shareholder | State Street Corporation | 46,594,475 shares (5.2%) | Schedule 13G filed Nov. 10, 2025, reporting shares as of Sep. 30, 2025 |
| Parent company | General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) | 100% of General Motors LLC | Ongoing |
| Operating subsidiary | General Motors LLC | Registered owner, CADILLAC Reg. No. 647241 | Ongoing |
Notably absent from that table is The Vanguard Group. Several consumer-facing sites repeat older figures crediting Vanguard as GM's largest shareholder at roughly 12%. GM's own April 2026 proxy does not list Vanguard among beneficial owners of more than 5%, meaning its stake has fallen under that threshold as of the most recent filing, or GM's disclosure obligation for Vanguard no longer applies at that level. Either way, the primary document does not support the widely repeated claim.
Directors and named executive officers hold comparatively little stock. CEO Mary T. Barra beneficially owned 1,658,807 shares as of April 1, 2026, and all directors and current executive officers as a group (17 people) held 3,941,869 shares, each amount under 1% of shares outstanding.
Who controls Cadillac?
Ownership and control mostly line up here since GM is a conventional single-class public company with no founding family stake or dual-class structure. But one 2025 development complicates the picture: the Cadillac name is now also the name of a Formula 1 racing team that GM does not control.
The Cadillac F1 team, which the FIA formally approved on March 7, 2025 and which entered the 2026 grid as the sport's eleventh constructor, operates through TWG Cadillac Formula 1 Team Holdings, LLC, an entity GM lists in its own FY2025 Exhibit 21 subsidiary schedule. The controlling partner is TWG Motorsports, the racing arm of TWG Global, the holding company built by Guggenheim Capital co-founder Mark Walter. GM licenses the Cadillac name and is contracted to become the team's power unit supplier starting in 2029, but TWG Motorsports runs the operation. It is a case where the brand license and the operating control sit with two different parties, a mechanic that a simple "GM owns Cadillac" answer misses entirely.
Founders: who started Cadillac?
Cadillac predates General Motors by six years. The Cadillac Automobile Company was founded in Detroit in 1902 by William Murphy, Lemuel Bowen, and Henry M. Leland, out of the remains of the Henry Ford Company after Henry Ford's departure. Leland, a precision machinist who had previously run Leland & Faulconer Manufacturing, supplied the new company's engines and became its guiding technical figure. The company took its name from Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, the French explorer credited with founding Detroit in 1701.
General Motors, itself only founded in September 1908 by William C. Durant, acquired the Cadillac Automobile Company for $4.5 million on July 29, 1909. Leland stayed on to run Cadillac as a GM division for several more years before leaving in 1917 to found Lincoln.
Ownership history: the timeline
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1902 | Cadillac Automobile Company founded by Murphy, Bowen, and Leland in Detroit | GM corporate history |
| Jul. 29, 1909 | General Motors acquires Cadillac for $4.5 million | History.com |
| Mar. 5, 1956 | CADILLAC service mark application filed with USPTO | USPTO TSDR, Reg. No. 647241 |
| Jun. 18, 1957 | CADILLAC mark registered on the Principal Register | USPTO TSDR, Reg. No. 647241 |
| Dec. 31, 2008 | General Motors Corporation grants the U.S. Treasury a security interest in its trademark portfolio, including CADILLAC, as loan collateral | USPTO assignment records, reel/frame 3927/0874 |
| Jul. 9, 2009 | General Motors Corporation formally changes its name to Motors Liquidation Company as part of the Chapter 11 case | USPTO assignment records, reel/frame 4033/0772 |
| Jul. 10, 2009 | The CADILLAC mark is assigned from Motors Liquidation Company (formerly General Motors Corporation) to the newly formed General Motors Company, closing the Section 363 bankruptcy sale | USPTO assignment records, reel/frame 4032/0370 |
| Nov. 18, 2010 | General Motors Company completes its initial public offering on the NYSE | Public record |
| Oct. 27, 2010 | General Motors LLC, by then the renamed operating entity, grants a security interest in CADILLAC and related marks to Wilmington Trust Company and OnStar, LLC | USPTO assignment records, reel/frame 4408/0911 |
| Oct. 17, 2014 | Wilmington Trust releases that security interest back to General Motors LLC and OnStar, LLC, the most recent recorded transaction on the mark as of this writing | USPTO assignment records, reel/frame 5389/0932 |
| Mar. 7, 2025 | FIA approves the Cadillac Formula 1 team, a joint venture between GM and TWG Motorsports | GM Newsroom |
The other entries in the CADILLAC mark's 13-transaction USPTO record follow the same pattern as the ones above: security interests granted to lenders such as Citicorp USA (acting for GM's bank and hedge priority secured parties) and released again as GM refinanced. They document who held a lien on the trademark at various points, not changes in who owned it.
What changed in the last 18 months
Two developments since early 2025 matter for anyone tracking Cadillac's ownership and structure rather than just its badge.
First, the Formula 1 entry. Cadillac is now, for the first time, a brand name attached to a motorsport operation GM does not fully control. TWG Cadillac Formula 1 Team Holdings, LLC shows up by name in GM's own FY2025 subsidiary exhibit, but the controlling partner is TWG Motorsports.
Second, the product side. Cadillac's EV push accelerated through 2025: the brand sold roughly 49,000 battery-electric vehicles for the year, a 69% jump over 2024, representing 28% of Cadillac's total sales and 29% of all GM EV sales for the year, with the Lyriq as the top seller. At the same time, GM is trimming the legacy lineup. The three-row XT6 ended production after the 2025 model year, and the compact CT4 sedan is set to end after 2026, with redesigned XT5 and CT5 successors expected to surface in 2026. None of this changes who owns Cadillac. It does change what "Cadillac" as a product portfolio will look like by the time the current CADILLAC trademark comes up for its next USPTO maintenance filing.
So who really owns Cadillac?
The trivia answer, "General Motors," has been correct since 1909 and remains correct today. The structure answer is more specific: General Motors LLC, a wholly owned Delaware subsidiary of the publicly traded General Motors Company, is the actual registered owner of the CADILLAC trademark, and no single shareholder controls the parent company. BlackRock and State Street are the only investors disclosed above the 5% threshold in GM's most recent proxy, and both are passive institutional holders with no board seats tied to their Cadillac-relevant stakes.
The part most coverage leaves out is the paper trail. The CADILLAC mark did not glide from old GM to new GM in one clean step. It sat, for one day in July 2009, under a company legally named Motors Liquidation Company, the shell that was once General Motors Corporation, before being assigned to the entity that eventually became today's NYSE-listed parent. That is a documented fact in USPTO's own assignment records, not an inference, and it is the kind of detail that a simple "GM owns Cadillac" answer erases.
FAQ
Does GM still own Cadillac?
Yes. General Motors LLC, the operating subsidiary of publicly traded General Motors Company, is the current registered owner of the CADILLAC trademark as of this writing.
Has Cadillac ever been owned by anyone other than General Motors?
No. Cadillac was independent from 1902 to 1909, when General Motors acquired it. It has remained part of GM continuously since, through GM's 2009 Chapter 11 reorganization and 2010 IPO.
Is Cadillac's Formula 1 team owned by General Motors?
Not fully. GM licenses the Cadillac name to the F1 team and will supply power units starting in 2029, but the team itself, TWG Cadillac Formula 1 Team Holdings, LLC, is majority controlled by TWG Motorsports, the racing arm of Mark Walter's TWG Global.
Who are General Motors' largest shareholders?
As of GM's April 2026 proxy statement, BlackRock, Inc. (8.3%) and State Street Corporation (5.2%) were the only investors disclosed above the 5% beneficial ownership threshold.
Who founded Cadillac?
William Murphy, Lemuel Bowen, and Henry M. Leland founded the Cadillac Automobile Company in Detroit in 1902, naming it after the city's French founder, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac.
What I'm watching next
GM's engine-supplier role for the Cadillac F1 team is not scheduled to begin until 2029, so watch whether that timeline holds or slips as the team's early on-track results come in. It is worth watching whether GM's stake in the F1 venture itself ever shows up as a percentage in a future 10-K, since right now the Exhibit 21 listing confirms the entity exists without disclosing the ownership split. And on the trademark side, worth a periodic check of USPTO's TSDR record for Reg. No. 647241 for any new assignment entries, since the mark has sat untouched, by the assignment record, since the October 2014 lien release.
Sources
1. DEF 14A Definitive Proxy Statement, General Motors Company, filed April 2026. SEC EDGAR filing. Establishes current beneficial ownership, the 5% holder table, and shares outstanding as of April 6, 2026.
2. Form 10-K FY2025, Exhibit 21 (Subsidiaries of the Registrant), General Motors Company. SEC EDGAR filing. Establishes subsidiary structure, including the two Cadillac-named legal entities.
3. USPTO Trademark Status and Document Retrieval (TSDR), Reg. No. 647241, CADILLAC, registered June 18, 1957. TSDR record. Establishes the registered owner of record and the 13-transaction assignment history.
4. GM Newsroom, FIA approval of the Cadillac Formula 1 team, March 7, 2025. GM Newsroom release. Establishes the F1 entry and the TWG Motorsports relationship.