Who Owns Harley-Davidson?

Harley-Davidson began in a Milwaukee shed in 1903, when William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson built their first motorized bicycle. Walter and William Davidson joined soon after, and by 1909 the company was producing its signature V-twin engine. It supplied motorcycles to the US military in both world wars, survived the Great Depression as one of only two major American motorcycle makers to endure, and defined postwar motorcycle culture.

The company's hardest era came under AMF ownership from 1969 to 1981, when quality suffered and Japanese competitors captured the market. A management buyout in 1981 led by Vaughn Beals and Willie G. Davidson restored independence, and the company staged one of American manufacturing's famous comebacks, going public in 1986 and reclaiming heavyweight leadership through the 1990s.

Harley became a lifestyle brand as much as a manufacturer, generating hundreds of millions in licensing and apparel revenue and building the Harley Owners Group into the largest factory-sponsored riding club in the world. Recent decades brought tension between an aging core demographic and the need to reach new riders, addressed through the Pan America adventure bike, the Bronx concept that was cancelled, the LiveWire electric spin-off, and mid-size international partnerships.

The 2020s have been difficult. Under Jochen Zeitz's Hardwire strategy the company cut models and raised prices, preserving margin while volumes fell. Fiscal 2025 showed the strain: consolidated revenue dropped 14 percent to $4.47 billion, motorcycle shipments fell 16 percent to 124,500 units, and tariffs squeezed gross margin by nearly four points. In October 2025 the company closed the HDFS partnership with KKR and PIMCO and installed Artie Starrs as CEO, tasking him with reigniting demand among younger riders.