A little more nuanced take: the transfer agent maintains a list of shareholders at the company's behest, the DTCC is one step further down the chain, operating as a clearinghouse between brokers and banks. The list of shareholders is managed by the company or it's bookkeeper, the "transfer agent". Insiders and people who own paper certificates are on the list kept by the transfer agent, directly owning their shares on the company's books, alongside Cede & Co (a partner of the DTCC), who owns the bulk of all publicly traded shares. Cede & Co, and it's partner, the DTCC, then maintain a list of which shares beneficially belong to each of the DTCC members (brokerages, banks). The brokerages and banks in turn maintain lists of which clients beneficially own the brokerage's shares.

For one commonly used transfer agent's take, see: https://www.computershare.com/us/becoming-a-registered-share...

Yeah for every explanation there’s another more complicated one, it’s a pretty crazy mess. A long chain of abstractions and not every one uses the same stack.

Note that the last time I checked, DTCC had over one quadrillion dollars of assets under management. They operate at a financial scale unlike any other entity on the planet.

For them, $44b is the crumb left behind after you've eaten the small potatoes.

Totally agree with not being able to hide owner ship (especially when are a director, major shareholder, and ceo) but I think DTCC is really only in the mix when you buy/sell shares via an exchange, and their focus is the settlement between brokers and exchanges. The registrar and transfer agent is who maintains the list of share holders (Computershare is the resgistrar and transfer agent for Tesla).

Thanks. I'm always curious about the practical logistics behind things.