LinkedIn is a global professional social-networking and business-services platform founded in 2003 and headquartered in Mountain View, California. It provides professional profiles and networking, recruiting and talent solutions, advertising, sales tools, premium subscriptions, learning, and related business services. Microsoft acquired it in 2016, and LinkedIn now operates as a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. The company is highly credible as a corporate entity, but user-facing support and account-access complaints are substantial.
Company overview
Website & domain
Registration data not publicly available.
Owners & key people
Trust signals
- Founded and operating since 2003.
- Wholly owned by Microsoft since 2016, providing clear corporate accountability.
- Official company profile identifies LinkedIn as a public-company subsidiary with 10,001+ employees.
- Microsoft publishes LinkedIn revenue and growth information in its annual reports.
- More than one billion members and broad global enterprise adoption.
- Clear public history, identifiable founders and executives, and extensive official documentation.
Red flags
- Trustpilot reviews are predominantly negative, with a reported score of 1.2/5 and approximately 695 reviews.
- Common complaints concern difficulty reaching human customer support, locked or restricted accounts, identity-verification loops, and delayed or ineffective resolution.
- As a large platform, LinkedIn is frequently associated with impersonation, phishing, fraudulent job postings, and recruitment scams; these risks generally concern user-generated activity rather than proof that LinkedIn itself is fraudulent.
- LinkedIn's corporate and support contact information is distributed across help-center and regional pages, and reviewers frequently report difficulty finding an effective direct support channel.
- LinkedIn does not publish a separately audited standalone valuation or complete standalone financial statements because it is wholly owned by Microsoft.
Reviews & reputation
LinkedIn is a legitimate, long-established professional-networking platform owned by Microsoft, with substantial scale, identifiable leadership, public corporate ownership, and billions of dollars in reported revenue. Its principal reputational weakness is customer-service quality: public Trustpilot feedback is strongly negative, especially regarding account restrictions, verification, and difficulty obtaining support. The platform also presents ordinary but significant marketplace risks from scams, fake profiles, phishing, and fraudulent job listings.
In the news
- Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in December 2016 for approximately $26.2 billion, or about $27 billion based on commonly reported transaction value.
- LinkedIn surpassed $15 billion in revenue in Microsoft's fiscal 2023.
- Microsoft reported that LinkedIn revenue increased by $1.4 billion, or 9%, in fiscal 2024.
- LinkedIn revenue was reported at approximately $17.81 billion for Microsoft's fiscal year ended June 30, 2025; this figure is an estimate or derived reporting figure because Microsoft does not publish LinkedIn as a separately audited public company.
- LinkedIn's membership reportedly grew to approximately 1.3 billion during Ryan Roslansky's tenure.
- On October 1, 2026, reports said Ryan Roslansky would leave Microsoft at the end of 2026 and that Daniel Shapero had become LinkedIn CEO.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linkedin
- https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/120214/how-does-linkedin-lnkd-make-money.asp
- https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar25/index.html
- https://www.britannica.com/money/LinkedIn
- https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.linkedin.com
- https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar23/index.html
- https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/01/linkedin-chief-roslansky-microsoft-exit.html
- https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/msft-linkedin-chief-ryan-roslansky-181543135.html
- https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar22/index.html
- https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar24/index.html
- https://www.forbes.com/companies/linkedin/
- https://www.revenuememo.com/p/who-owns-linkedin
AI-compiled from public sources. Last updated 10/2/2026.