The Mozilla Corporation is a wholly owned taxable subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Firefox web browser, by a global community of open-source developers, some of whom are employed by the corporation itself. The corporation also distributes and promotes these products. Unlike the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla open source project, founded by the now defunct Netscape Communications Corporation, the Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit entity. The Mozilla Corporation reinvests all of its profits back into the Mozilla projects. The Mozilla Corporation's stated aim is to work towards the Mozilla Foundation's public benefit to "promote choice and innovation on the Internet."
A MozillaZine article explained:The Mozilla Foundation will ultimately control the activities of the Mozilla Corporation and will retain its 100 percent ownership of the new subsidiary. Any profits made by the Mozilla Corporation will be invested back into the Mozilla project. There will be no shareholders, no stock options will be issued and no dividends will be paid. The Mozilla Corporation will not be floating on the stock market and it will be impossible for any company to take over or buy a stake in the subsidiary. The Mozilla Foundation will continue to own the Mozilla trademarks and other intellectual property and will license them to the Mozilla Corporation. The Foundation will also continue to govern the source code repository and control who is allowed to check in.MozillaZine article: "Mozilla Foundation Announces Creation of Mozilla Corporation" Retrieved via the Internet Archive on 03-24-2009.
Establishment The Mozilla Corporation was established on August 3, 2005, to handle the revenue-related operations of the Mozilla Foundation. As a non-profit, the Mozilla Foundation is limited in terms of the types and amounts of revenue it can have. The Mozilla Corporation, which is the for-profit component of the Mozilla Organization, does not have to comply with such strict rules. Upon its creation, the Mozilla Corporation took over several areas from the Mozilla Foundation, including coordination and integration of the development of Firefox and Thunderbird (by the global free software community) and the management of relationships with businesses.
With the creation of the Mozilla Corporation, the rest of the Mozilla Foundation narrowed its focus to concentrate on the Mozilla project's governance and policy issues. In November 2005, with the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.5, the Mozilla Corporation's website at mozilla.com was unveiled as the new home of the Firefox and Thunderbird products online.
In 2006, the Mozilla Corporation generated $66.8 million in revenue and $19.8 million in expenses, with 85% of that revenue coming from Google for "assigning [Google] as the browser's default search engine, and for click-throughs on ads placed on the ensuing search results pages."
Mozilla Taiwan () was a branch of the corporation founded in , that promoted and deployed Mozilla products in Taiwan. It ceased operations on August 11, 2020, due to a "significant restructuring" of its parent company.
Finances
Most of the revenue of Mozilla Corporation comes from Google (86% in 2024) in exchange for making it the default search engine in Firefox.
+Consolidated financial results of Mozilla Foundation and subsidiaries Year Total revenue Revenue derived from Google Total expenses Software development expenses Reference 2005 $52.9 million 95% ($50.3 million) Page 11. 2006 $66.9 million 90% ($60.2 million) 2007 $81 million 88% ($71.3 million) 2008 $78.6 million 91% ($71.5 million) 2009 86%
2010 $123 million 84% ($103.3 million) $87 million $63 million 2011 $163.5 million 85% ($139 million) $145 million $103 million 2012$311 million90% ($280 million)$208 million$149 million2013$314 million90% ($282.6 million)$295 million$197 million2014$420 million90% ($378 million)$317 million$213 million2015$420 million90% ($378 million) (from Yahoo, not Google)$337 million$214 million2016$520 million94% ($488.8 million)$360 million$225 million2017$562 million93% ($522.7 million)$421 million$259 million2018$450 million91% ($409.5 million)$451 million$277 million2019$829 million88% ($405.9 million)$495 million$303 million2020$497 million86% ($427.4 million)$438 million$242 million2021$600 million83% ($498 million)$339 million$199 million2022$593 million81% ($480 million)$425 million$220 million2023$653 million85% ($555 million)$496 million$260 million2024$680 million86% ($585 million)$588 million$290 million
Notable events
In March 2006, Jason Calacanis reported a rumor on his blog that Mozilla Corporation gained $72M during the previous year, mainly thanks to the Google search box in the Firefox browser.Calacanis blog: "Firefox (Mozilla Corporation/Mozilla Foundation) made $72M last year?!" The rumor was later addressed by Christopher Blizzard, then a member of the board, who wrote on his blog that, "it's not correct, though not off by an order of magnitude." Two years later, TechCrunch wrote: "In return for setting Google as the default search engine on Firefox, Google pays Mozilla a substantial sum – in 2006, the total amounted to around $57 million, or 85% of the company's total revenue. The deal was originally going to expire in 2006, but was later extended to 2008 and then ran through 2011." The deal was extended again another 3 years, until November 2014. Under the deal, Mozilla was to have received from Google another $900 million ($300 million annually), nearly 3 times the previous amount. The partnership to use Google as the default search engine was resumed after a three-year hiatus in 2017.
In August 2006, Microsoft invited Mozilla employees to collaborate to ensure compatibility of Mozilla software with then upcoming Windows Vista operating system. Microsoft offered to host one-to-one at the new open-source facility at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash. Mozilla accepted the offer.
In March 2014, Mozilla came under some criticism after it appointed Brendan Eich as its new chief executive officer (CEO). In 2008, Eich had made a $1,000 contribution in support of California Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that barred legal recognition of same-sex marriages in California. Three of six Mozilla board members reportedly resigned over the choice of CEO, though Mozilla said the resigning board members had "a variety of reasons" and reasserted its continued commitment to LGBT equality, including same-sex marriage. On April 1, the online dating site OkCupid started displaying visitors using Mozilla Firefox a message urging them to switch to a different web browser, pointing out that 8% of the matches made on OkCupid are between same-sex couples. On April 3, Mozilla announced that Eich had decided to step down as CEO and also leave the board of Mozilla Foundation. This, in turn, prompted a response from some commentators who criticized the pressure that led Eich to resign.Richi Jennings, Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich quits: But now the backlash begins..., Computerworld (April 4, 2014).Jimmy Akin How you can push back against Mozilla/Firefox's gay marriage thuggery , National Catholic Register (April 6, 2014).Mozilla CEO resignation raises free-speech issues, Associated Press (April 4, 2016): "While many gay-rights activists and commentators welcomed Eich's departure, there were dissenters. Andrew Sullivan, a prominent gay blogger, railed against the pressure that led to the resignation." For example, Conor Friedersdorf argued in The Atlantic that "the general practice of punishing people in business for bygone political donations is most likely to entrench powerful interests and weaken the ability of the powerless to challenge the status quo."
In April 2014, Chris Beard, the former chief marketing officer of Mozilla, was appointed interim CEO. Beard was named CEO on July 28 of the same year.
On February 27, 2017, Mozilla acquired the bookmark manager and suggestion service Pocket. In accordance with Mozilla's history of operating as "open by default" and based on comments by Mozilla chief business officer Denelle Dixon-Thayer that Pocket would "become part of the Mozilla open source project", it was reported that Pocket would become open source. Prior to the acquisition, the startup behind Pocket operated it as a closed source, commercial service, and Mozilla published the source code that added a "Save to Pocket" feature to Firefox as open source. , Pocket remained closed source, while the extension remained open source. On May 22, 2025, Mozilla announced that it would shut down Pocket on July 8, 2025. Exports of user data would be available until October 8, 2025, when accounts would be deleted.
In February 2017, Mozilla dissolved its IoT "Connected Devices" initiative, laying off around 50 employees, to focus on "Emerging Technologies" like AR, VR and Servo/Rust.
On August 29, 2019, Mozilla and Chris Beard jointly announced that 2019 would be Beard's last year as CEO of Mozilla. In December, Mitchell Baker became the interim CEO, before being named CEO in April 2020.
In January 2020, it was reported that Mozilla would be laying off 70 employees after the new revenue streams could not deliver the expected revenue quickly enough. In August 2020, Mozilla announced restructuring that will close down Mozilla operations in Taipei, Taiwan, and reduce Mozilla's workforce in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. All together, about 250 people would be let go with severance packages and around 60 people would be reassigned to different projects or teams. Mozilla is "reducing investment in some areas such as developer tools, internal tooling, and platform feature development" and reorganizing "security/privacy products" to prioritize revenue-generating projects. Shortly after the announcement of staff cuts, Mozilla insiders leaked information that the Google search deal will be extended until 2023 instead of expiring in 2020, meaning the corporation financial state is stable.
In December 2020, Mozilla closed its headquarters office in Mountain View, citing reduced need for office space due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The title of headquarters went to the San Francisco office.
In May 2023, Mozilla acquired the startup Fakespot. The company, which was founded by Saoud Khalifah, specialized in identifying fake product reviews on e-commerce websites. Mozilla integrated their technology into Firefox while maintaining its existing website and browser extensions. Fakespot features were scheduled to be disabled in June and July 2025; Mozilla said these features were unsustainable.
On February 8, 2024, Mozilla announced that Mitchell Baker would be stepping down as CEO, effective immediately, to focus on AI and internet safety in her role as chair of the Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla board member Laura Chambers was announced as interim CEO. On February 14, 2024, Mozilla Corporation announced a strategic shift toward building generative-AI features into Firefox and other flagship products, cutting about 60 roles (≈ 5% of staff) and winding down several standalone privacy services. Earlier, on March 22, 2023, Mozilla committed US $30 million to launch Mozilla.ai, a wholly owned subsidiary aiming to build an open-source ecosystem for "trustworthy" artificial intelligence.
In March 2024, Mozilla patched two critical zero-day vulnerabilities in Firefox that were demonstrated at the Pwn2Own hacking competition. The vulnerabilities, identified as CVE-2024-29943 and CVE-2024-29944, were promptly addressed in Firefox version 124.0.1.