Honestly, if you're looking for one guy in a suit who owns Knight Transportation, you're going to be disappointed. It isn't a family business anymore. Not really. While the Knight name is still all over the trucks and the boardroom, the reality of who owns Knight Transportation is a lot more complicated—and a lot more corporate—than it used to be back in the 90s.
Basically, Knight Transportation is a brand under a massive umbrella called Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc. (NYSE: KNX). If you own shares of KNX in your 401(k) or through a Robinhood account, you’re technically one of the owners. But the "big" owners? Those are the massive institutional investment firms that manage trillions of dollars for people all over the world.
The Merger That Changed Everything
To understand the ownership today, you have to look back at 2017. That was the year Knight Transportation and Swift Transportation decided to stop fighting each other for highway dominance and just get married. It was a "merger of equals," though Knight was technically the one doing the "buying" for accounting reasons.
This created a $6 billion trucking juggernaut.
Before this, the Knight family—specifically cousins Kevin, Gary, Keith, and Randy—had a massive amount of control. They started the company in Phoenix in 1990 with just a handful of trucks and a $10 million loan from Mercedes-Benz Credit. They were the classic American success story. They even had a "one share, one vote" policy that kept the power concentrated.
But when you merge with a giant like Swift, things shift. Swift was founded by Jerry Moyes, another legend in the trucking world. After the merger, the Moyes family and the Knight family both became massive stakeholders in the new combined company.
Who Actually Holds the Keys in 2026?
If you look at the SEC filings from late 2025 and early 2026, the picture is very clear. Institutional investors own about 89% of the company. We’re talking about the "Big Three" and their friends.
- Vanguard Group: Usually the top dog, holding around 9% of the shares.
- BlackRock: Right on their heels with roughly 8.9%.
- FMR (Fidelity): Holding a significant chunk, usually around 8%.
- Wellington Management: Another heavy hitter in the 6% range.
When these firms buy or sell, the stock price moves. They don't drive the trucks, and they don't decide which routes to take, but they own the lion's share of the equity.
Then you've got the insiders. These are the people who actually work there or founded the place. Kevin Knight, the Executive Chairman, still holds a massive amount of stock—over 1.4 million shares indirectly through trusts. However, he’s been trimming his position. Just in December 2025, he sold about 35,000 shares for roughly $1.8 million.
It’s not a fire sale. It’s just what executives do to diversify their money. He still has plenty of "skin in the game."
The Moyes Family Influence
You can't talk about Knight-Swift without mentioning the Moyes family. Jerry Moyes basically built the modern trucking industry. Even though he’s retired from the day-to-day, his family remains one of the largest individual shareholder blocks.
Michael Moyes and Lyndee Moyes Nester hold massive stakes—we're talking double-digit percentages when you look at certain insider groups. In fact, some filings suggest the Moyes family interests collectively held a huge portion of the voting power post-merger, though they agreed to limit how much of that "power" they actually use to avoid scaring off other investors.
Who Runs the Show Day-to-Day?
Ownership is one thing; leadership is another. In February 2024, there was a big shake-up. David Jackson, who had been the CEO for nine years, stepped down.
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Adam Miller is now the CEO of Knight-Swift.
Miller isn't an outsider. He’s a veteran who’s been with the company since 2002. He was the CFO during the 2017 merger and helped integrate Swift into the Knight culture. Helping him is Andrew Hess, the CFO who joined in 2019 after a stint at Honeywell.
This new leadership team is focused on one thing: diversification. They don’t just want to haul "dry van" freight (the standard big boxes). They’ve been buying up companies like AAA Cooper and Midwest Motor Express to get into the LTL (Less-Than-Truckload) business. They also bought U.S. Xpress in 2023 for about $800 million.
Is Knight Still a "Family" Company?
Kinda. But also, no.
The culture still feels like a family business in Phoenix. You still see the Knights in the office. Kevin Knight is the Executive Chairman and Gary Knight is the Vice Chairman. They are the "elders" of the company.
But the reality is that Knight-Swift is a public company beholden to Wall Street. If the profit margins dip—which happened in 2024 and 2025 due to a "freight recession" and overcapacity—the big owners (Vanguard and BlackRock) start asking hard questions.
The company has had to get leaner. They've reduced their fleet size recently to cope with lower demand. That’s not a "family" move; that’s a "public company" move.
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What This Means for Drivers and Customers
If you're a driver, who owns Knight Transportation might seem like trivia. But it matters. Because it's owned by public shareholders, the company is obsessed with safety and efficiency. Why? Because lawsuits and fuel waste hurt the stock price.
For customers, the ownership structure provides a massive safety net. Knight-Swift is so big and so well-capitalized that they aren't going out of business anytime soon, even when the economy gets rocky. They have the "leverage" that small, privately-owned carriers just don't have.
Real-World Ownership Breakdown (The Numbers)
While the numbers fluctuate daily based on stock trades, the general breakdown as of January 2026 looks like this:
- Institutions (The Giants): ~89%
- Individual Insiders (Founders/Execs): ~3%
- Retail Public (You and me): ~8%
It's a classic "widely held" public company. No single person owns enough to just do whatever they want. It’s a collective of thousands of investors, led by the founding families and a team of professional managers.
Surprising Details You Might Not Know
People often think Knight is just a subset of Swift. It's actually the other way around in terms of management. When they merged, the "Knight way" of doing things—which was famously efficient and focused on high margins—was applied to the Swift side.
Also, they own a bunch of other brands you might recognize:
- Barr-Nunn Transportation
- Abilene Motor Express
- Iron Fuel Program
- AAA Cooper
All of these are "owned" by the same group of shareholders who own Knight.
Actionable Insights for Investors and Industry Watchers
If you're tracking this company, keep your eyes on the LTL (Less-Than-Truckload) expansion. Adam Miller has made it clear that this is where the growth is. The "ownership" wants to see Knight-Swift become more than just a truckload company.
Check the Form 4 filings on the SEC website regularly. If you see Kevin Knight or the Moyes family selling large chunks of shares beyond their usual diversification patterns, it might signal a shift in their long-term confidence. But for now, their continued presence in the boardroom suggests they are still very much committed to the legacy they built.
To stay truly informed, don't just look at the Knight Transportation website. You have to look at the Knight-Swift Investor Relations portal. That’s where the real ownership data, the quarterly earnings, and the strategic shifts are hidden in plain sight. Keep an eye on the "Institutional Inflows" vs "Outflows"—as of early 2026, the big money is still largely holding steady, betting that the trucking cycle is finally turning back in their favor.