Who owns Craigslist today?
Craigslist, Inc. is private. It has never sold shares to the public and it has no outside investors pushing it toward a sale. When the AIM Group's revenue estimate made headlines in January 2019, CNBC described the company as "wholly owned by founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster," running on a staff of about 50 people in San Francisco.
It was not always that tidy. In 2004 a rival online marketplace bought roughly a quarter of Craigslist from a former employee, and the relationship soured. The shareholder sued in Delaware in 2008 after the Craigslist board adopted a rights plan and other measures that worked against its stake. On September 9, 2010, the Court of Chancery struck the poison pill down, with Chancellor William B. Chandler III writing that "Having chosen a for-profit corporate form, the craigslist directors are bound by the fiduciary duties and standards that accompany that form." The stake went back to Craigslist in June 2015 and the litigation ended with it.
Jim Buckmaster has been chief executive since November 2000, which makes him one of the longest-serving CEOs on the American web. Craig Newmark stepped back from running the site years ago and now spends most of his time funding journalism, veterans' groups and cybersecurity work through Craig Newmark Philanthropies, which he set up in 2015.
How much money does Craigslist make now?
Less than a third of what it made at the peak. The AIM Group, a classifieds consultancy that has tracked the site since 2004, estimated Craigslist revenue at $1.034 billion in 2018, the first year it cleared a billion dollars.
The next year it fell 27 percent to $760 million, the first drop AIM had ever recorded, and a 37 percent fall in job advertising did most of the damage. The slide did not stop there. AIM's 2025 report put 2024 revenue at $302 million, down another 20 percent, a third straight down year and the lowest total since 2013.
What has not changed is the shape of the business. Most Craigslist listings are still free to post. The money comes from job ads in major metros, brokered apartment listings, commercial real estate and a short list of other paid categories, so a weak year in hiring is a weak year for the whole company. Even after the decline, AIM's 2025 report still ranked Craigslist first among United States horizontal classifieds sites in both revenue and traffic, ahead of Mercari and OfferUp.
How a San Francisco email list turned into a classifieds giant
Craig Newmark started sending friends in San Francisco a list of local events, apartments and jobs by email in 1995. People asked to be added, the list outgrew email, and it moved to the web in 1996. Newmark incorporated the company in 1999, right as the dot-com bubble was inflating around companies with far more funding and far less traffic.
Jim Buckmaster arrived as a programmer in 2000 and took over as chief executive that November. The pair then did the opposite of what everyone else did. They did not raise venture money, did not expand the paid categories aggressively, and did not grow the staff past about 50 people. Craigslist charged for job ads in a handful of big cities and gave away everything else.
That choice is what made the 2010 Delaware ruling so unusual. A for-profit Delaware corporation that openly declines to maximize its own value had no obvious precedent, and the court said so.
What Craigslist did to newspaper classifieds
American newspapers ran on classified advertising, and the collapse of that line is the closest thing the industry has to a cause of death. Newspaper Association of America figures show classified revenue peaking at $19.6 billion in 2000 and falling to about $6 billion by 2010, a drop of roughly 70 percent in a decade. By 2012 it was down to $4.6 billion.
Craigslist was not the only reason. Monster.com took jobs, Realtor.com took housing and Cars.com took autos, and readers were leaving print for other reasons entirely. But Craigslist took the whole page at once and charged nothing for most of it. One academic study of 1,000 newspapers between 2000 and 2007 estimated that classified advertisers saved $5 billion by posting free on Craigslist instead of buying newspaper space.
Online display advertising, which started with the first banner ad in 1994, never replaced that money for newspapers. Classifieds had carried high margins and low costs. A free listing board with no sales force could not be undercut.
Why the personals and adult sections disappeared
On August 24, 2010, 17 state attorneys general wrote to Craigslist demanding that it close its adult services section, arguing the company could not keep ads for prostitution and trafficking off the site. Craigslist first covered the link with a black and white "censored" bar, then shut the section down in early September 2010.
The bigger cut came eight years later. On March 23, 2018, two days after Congress passed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, Craigslist deleted its personals section worldwide and posted a notice to users: "Any tool or service can be misused. We can't take such risk without jeopardizing all our other services."
The new law made platforms liable for sex trafficking ads posted by users, which stripped away the protection that had let a company of 50 people host millions of listings it did not read. Craigslist did not fight it or staff up to moderate. It removed the category, which is what a company built to stay small does when the legal risk arrives.
Why the site still looks like 1996
Craigslist is blue links on a gray page, and has been for close to thirty years. Most of its software is written in Perl, a language that was common when the site was built and rare now. The company has never rebuilt the front end around images, feeds or recommendations, and it has never run an algorithm designed to keep anyone scrolling.
The clearest sign of how little that philosophy bends: Craigslist did not ship an official smartphone app until December 2019, more than eleven years after the App Store opened. It still belongs on the short list of 90s websites still online in something close to their original form.
The trade is visible in the numbers. Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp and Mercari offer profiles, ratings and built-in payments, and they have taken share for a decade. Craigslist offers a text box and a phone number, and for apartments, gigs, free furniture and odd local jobs, a lot of people still prefer it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Craigslist still in business in 2026?
Yes. Craigslist is still operating in 2026, with local sites in more than 570 cities in over 70 countries, and it remains the largest general classifieds site in the United States by revenue and traffic. Its estimated revenue was $302 million in 2024, down from $1.034 billion in 2018.
Who owns Craigslist now?
Craigslist, Inc. is a private company owned by founder Craig Newmark and chief executive Jim Buckmaster, who has held the CEO job since November 2000. An outside marketplace held about a quarter of the company from 2004 until June 2015, when it sold the stake back and ended its Delaware litigation with Craigslist.
When did Craigslist shut down its personals section?
Craigslist removed its personals section on March 23, 2018, two days after Congress passed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act. The company had already closed its adult services section in September 2010 after 17 state attorneys general demanded it, and neither section has returned.