If you have searched for who owns Hotmail, the answer is Microsoft. The company acquired Hotmail in December 1997 from its two founders for an estimated $400 million.
Hotmail no longer exists as an independent brand. Since 2013, it has operated entirely under Microsoft's Outlook.com. Your old @hotmail.com address still works it just runs on Microsoft's platform now, not a separate Hotmail system.
Who Created Hotmail Before Microsoft Owned It
Hotmail was not a Microsoft product from the start. Two engineers built it from scratch. Understanding where it came from makes the ownership story much clearer.
Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith Founded Hotmail in 1996
Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith launched Hotmail publicly on July 4, 1996. The date was a deliberate choice a symbolic nod to independence, specifically freedom from ISP-controlled email.
Before Hotmail, your email address was tied to whichever internet provider you paid for. Switch providers, lose your address. That was the problem they were solving.
The name itself is a small piece of history. They considered many options ending in "-mail" and settled on Hotmail partly because it embedded the letters HTML written as HoTMaiL in the original branding.
A nod to the web technology that made browser-based email possible.Venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson backed the project in its early days.
The service grew fast. By December 1997 just 18 months after launch Hotmail had more than 8.5 million subscribers. That kind of momentum is what put it on Microsoft's radar.
Why the Founders Decided to Sell
Growth alone does not explain the sale. What accelerated it was a significant infrastructure failure. In 1997, a data incident wiped inbox data for roughly 25 percent of Hotmail mailboxes. For a free email service built on trust, that was serious. Managing a platform at that scale, with that kind of vulnerability, required resources the founders did not have on their own.
Microsoft made the approach at the right moment. Both founders agreed to the deal. Jack Smith joined Microsoft after the acquisition and led the Hotmail engineering team for a period before moving on. Sabeer Bhatia left to pursue other ventures.
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When and How Microsoft Acquired Hotmail
The December 1997 Deal
Microsoft completed the Hotmail acquisition in December 1997. The reported purchase price is approximately $400 million, though neither Microsoft nor the founders ever officially confirmed the exact figure. You will see slightly different numbers in different sources some cimte $400 million, some go higher. The range reflects the fact that the precise terms were never made public.
What is not in dispute is the timing or the buyer. Microsoft has owned Hotmail continuously since that December 1997 transaction. It was never sold on to Yahoo, AOL, or any other company a misconception that still circulates online and is simply inaccurate.
What Microsoft Did With Hotmail After the Purchase
MSN Hotmail: 1997 to 2007
Immediately after the acquisition, Microsoft folded Hotmail into its MSN product group and rebranded it MSN Hotmail. The service expanded globally and grew quickly under Microsoft's infrastructure. By early 1999, it had 30 million active subscribers a remarkable number for a free email service less than three years old.
The technical migration was gradual. Hotmail originally ran on FreeBSD and Solaris servers. Microsoft worked to shift it onto Windows-based infrastructure, a process that took longer than expected.
At one point Microsoft publicly stated the migration was complete, then had to retract that claim days later. In practice, parts of the system continued running on Unix well into the early 2000s.
Windows Live Hotmail: 2007 to 2011
In May 2007, Microsoft absorbed Hotmail into its Windows Live suite of products and rebranded it Windows Live Hotmail. This was part of a broader strategy to bundle its consumer online services under a single brand. The product itself remained a free email service ,The name just got longer.
Back to Hotmail, Then Retired: 2011 to 2013
In October 2011, Microsoft dropped the Windows Live prefix and returned to calling the service simply Hotmail. That lasted about two years.
In May 2013, Hotmail.com was officially retired as a brand. New account signups were directed to Outlook.com instead. Existing accounts were migrated automatically.
What is worth being clear about: this was a rebrand, not a shutdown. The accounts, the email addresses, the platform all of it continued. The Hotmail name just stopped being used for new products.
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Who Owns Hotmail Today
Microsoft Corporation owns Hotmail today. It operates the service as Outlook.com, a free personal email platform that is part of Microsoft's consumer product line. Any Microsoft account whether created with an @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, or @live.com address runs on the same underlying system.
Microsoft is a publicly traded company listed on NASDAQ under the ticker MSFT. No single individual owns Hotmail in any private sense.
It is a product of a publicly held corporation, which means ownership is distributed across its shareholders. Satya Nadella serves as Microsoft's CEO, but that does not make him Hotmail's owner in any meaningful personal way.
What This Means If You Still Have a Hotmail Address
Your @hotmail.com Address Still Works
Nothing changed that would lock you out of your existing account. You can still send and receive email using your @hotmail.com address.
The only visible difference is where you log in hotmail.com redirects automatically to outlook.live.com. Same credentials. Same inbox. Different URL.
New @hotmail.com Addresses Are No Longer Available
When Microsoft retired the Hotmail brand in 2013, it stopped issuing new @hotmail.com addresses. New accounts are created with @outlook.com.
The @hotmail.com domain is what is called a legacy domain still active for existing users, but not available for new signups.If you want to update your address from @hotmail.com to @outlook.com, you can do that inside your account settings after logging in to Outlook.com.
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Conclusion
Microsoft owns Hotmail and has since December 1997. The brand is gone, replaced by Outlook.com in 2013. But the service, the accounts, and the @hotmail.com addresses all live on under Microsoft. If something you read elsewhere suggested Yahoo or AOL were involved, that is simply not accurate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Hotmail still owned by Microsoft?
Yes. Microsoft has owned Hotmail without interruption since December 1997. The brand was retired in 2013 but the service continues as Outlook.com under Microsoft's ownership.
Did Microsoft ever sell Hotmail to Yahoo or AOL?
No. This is a common misconception. Microsoft purchased Hotmail in 1997 and has never sold it. Yahoo and AOL have no ownership stake in Hotmail, past or present.
Is Hotmail the same thing as Outlook now?
Functionally yes. Hotmail was retired as a brand in 2013 and replaced by Outlook.com. Existing @hotmail.com addresses still work, but the underlying platform and product is now Outlook.
Who originally founded Hotmail?
Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith co-founded Hotmail and launched it on July 4, 1996. They sold the company to Microsoft in December 1997.
How much did Microsoft pay for Hotmail?
The most widely reported figure is approximately $400 million. The exact amount was never officially confirmed by either party, so figures vary slightly across sources.
