History Main / MajorityShareDictator

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[[folder:Film - Live-Acton]]

This is a common tactic of {{Predatory Business}}es. Often results in TyrantTakesTheHelm. Easily (and sometimes repeatedly) accomplished by members of the {{Fiction 500}} and characters with {{Arbitrarily Large Bank Account}}s. May be a resolution to CorporateWarfare. For the electoral [[SisterTrope equivalent]], see DecidedByOneVote.

-->'''Leela:''' Zoidberg owned 51% of the company?\\

* When UsefulNotes/{{NASCAR}} driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. couldn't invoke this trope with his late great father's company (the now defunct Dale Earnhardt, Inc.) back in 2007, he ended up jumping ship to one of DEI's archrivals, Hendrick Motorsports.

* When Main/{{NASCAR}} driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. couldn't invoke this trope with his late great father's company (the now defunct Dale Earnhardt, Inc.) back in 2007, he ended up jumping ship to one of DEI's archrivals, Hendrick Motorsports.
* In the Bitcoin community, there was a brouhaha when mining group Ghash.io managed to acquire 51% of the total mining power (after they had promised not to,) which could allow them to abuse the system in various ways such as piling on extra transaction fees. They were subject to repeated lynch-mob style DDOS attacks simply due to fears of the hypothetical possibility of abuse.

* Peter [=LaFleur=] in ''Film/DodgeballATrueUnderdogStory'' buys Globo Gym's controlling stake using the $5 million his team won. He is then able to totally remodel the gym while the original majority shareholder, White Goodman eats himself back to into obesity.

* In ''{{VideoGame/Civilization}} V'', If you have more than half the delegates to the World Congress, you can effectively force any proposal you want. As host, you get to make a proposal every iteration, and the host gets additional votes. You can use this controlling power to make your religion the world religion and ideology the world ideology, for even more votes.

In RealLife, owning the majority of a company does not give you absolute power over it. If you own 51% of shares, that still leaves 49% to other stockholders who are still partial ''owners'' of the company and retain certain rights--such as appointing a board of directors who make decisions for the company, including appointing a C.E.O. who makes decisions, etc. etc.

In fiction, however, owning [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlling_interest controlling interest]] in a company endows you with godlike power over the organization, making your demands unquestionable and decisions final. So if a character wants to take complete control of a corporation--to [[GoodRunningEvil change its]] [[EvilRunningGood allegiances]], to [[TheTale amass personal wealth]], to use it to [[OneNationUnderCopyright take over the world]], or just [[ForTheEvulz for the glory of it]]--all they need to do is acquire a slight majority of its stock. This majority is almost always stated to be 51% of the voting stock, but the trope still applies if the exact percent is unspecified but still grants the same power as having 100%.

* In ''Noble House'' (based on [[Literature/NobleHouse the James Clavell novel]], mechanically this has a certain truth to it. Each player starts out owning 50% of the "core stock" in their company, with the other 50% held by anonymous investors. As long as the player holds that 50%, they remain unchallenged Tai-pan of their company, but they can be potentially ousted if their ownership falls.

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* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnoldTheMovie'': Big Bob Pataki initially goes along with [[BigBad Mr. Scheck]]'s plan to bulldoze Arnold's neighborhood and replace it with a mall because he was promised that one of the stores contained therein would be his largest-ever beeper emporium. Later on, however, he reads the fine print of the contract and discovers that in exchange for said beeper emporium, Scheck gets 51% of the shares in his company. Cue one HeelFaceTurn.

* In the Eleventh Doctor Year One ''ComicBook/Doctor WhoTitan'' comics, the Doctor buys 51% of the arc-antagonists [[PeaceAndLoveIncorporated ServeYouInc]] through rich friends and a CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit, but is quickly seduced by their evil.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Doctor Who|Titan}}'' the Doctor buys 51% of the arc-antagonists [[PeaceAndLoveIncorporated ServeYouInc]] through rich friends and a CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit, but is quickly seduced by their evil.

** In practice though, most {{Mega Corp}}s have their controlling shares split among several people and/or organizations due to the sheer number of shares and their stock value. The exception being Saeder-Krupp, which is owned entirely by the Great Dragon Lofwyr, who cashed in his hoard and created a range of shell companies in order to covertly take over.

* 'Film/MissionImpossibleII' has this as the plan of the BigBad: to extort CorruptCorporateExecutive John C. [=McCloy=] into giving him enough money to buy 51% of his pharmaceutical company, whose stock prices will be sent through the roof when the synthetic "Chimera" virus starts killing people on the streets and the company [[PoisonAndCureGambit starts production of the only available vaccine]].

--> '''Welch''' Your 49 percent wants him out of the show but my 51 wants him in, so he stays in.

* In ''Anime/YuGiOh'', Seto Kaiba is given 2% of the shares to his stepfather's company Kaiba Corp, but has to use them to make 100 times their worth within a year's time. Seto does this by buying 51% of a company and threatening to close it and put everyone out of work unless the original owner buys it back for five times it value, which he agrees to for the sake of the employees. It's implied Seto repeats this with other companies to work up the needed money to please his stepfather. He later takes over Kaiba Corp itself with the same strategy, though this depended on [[DecidedByOneVote the 2%]] of shares from Mokuba siding with his older brother at the last second.

* In the [[ComicBook/TheSimpsons Simpsons]] comic, "To Heir is Homer", Homer ends up being bequeathed 51% of the shares in Duff Brewery by the will of the previous owner, Sam Duff, with Montgomery Burns controlling the other 49%. He ends up driving the company into the ground with idiotic decisions and is forced to sell the shares to Burns. Fortunately for Homer, it turns out Sam Duff wasn't actually dead (so that 51% had never been actually his to begin with), and Homer had the chance to enjoy something he didn't own for a while.
* In ''ComicBook/DoctorWhoTitan'' the Doctor buys 51% of the arc-antagonists [[PeaceAndLoveIncorporated ServeYouInc]] through rich friends and a CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit, but is quickly seduced by their evil.

--> '''Welch''': Your 49 percent wants him out of the show but my 51 wants him in, so he stays in.

* In ''Film/{{Scrooge 1951}}'', Scrooge and Marley obtain their wealth by offering to cover the expenses of their owner's embezzlement scandal in return for the right to buy up to 51% of the company's shares. Naturally this gives them absolute power over the day-to-day business of the company.
* At the start of ''Film/BatmanBegins'', Bruce Wayne has regained control of Wayne Enterprises by buying controlling interest in it, which he uses to fire CEO William Earle and rehire Lucius Fox into that position.

'''Wayne:''' And I bought most of the shares--through various charitable foundations and trusts and so forth. Look, it's all a bit technical, but the important thing is that my company's future is secure. ''[speaks slightly louder]'' Right, Mr. Fox?\\
'''Lucius Fox:''' Right you are, Mister Wayne. ''[turns to Earle and takes off his glasses]'' Didn't you get the memo?
* Film/MissionImpossibleII has this as the plan of the BigBad: to extort CorruptCorporateExecutive John C. [=McCloy=] into giving him enough money to buy 51% of his pharmaceutical company, whose stock prices will be sent through the roof when the synthetic "Chimera" virus starts killing people on the streets and the company [[PoisonAndCureGambit starts production of the only available vaccine]].

* A benign version of this takes place over the course of [[Creator/AnneMcCaffrey Anne McCaffrey]]'s ''[[Literature/TheShipWho The Ship Who Searched]]''. About a third of the way in, Hypatia Cade, a quadraplegic who has been turned into a brainship, is seen telling her stockbroker to invest some of her earnings into a cybernetics company that is apparently not very profitable. Way later, now owning a majority stake, she introduces herself as their new owner. She didn't want to do anything untoward, she just wanted them to [[spoiler:build her a robot body so she could have a physical relationship with her human partner Alex]].

* ''Series/IronFist2017'': Upon returning to New York, Danny Rand reclaims 51% of his company and uses his new position to overrule any questionable decision made by the board.

* TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}} supplement ''Corporate Shadowfiles''. This is specifically stated to be the case in the future Earth of the game. By standard corporate rules anyone who has more than 50% of the total voting shares can elect anyone they want to the board of directors. The board can then remove and replace corporate leaders, thus granting control of the company.

* In {{VideoGame/Civilization}} V, If you have more than half the delegates to the World Congress, you can effectively force any proposal you want. As host, you get to make a proposal every iteration, and the host gets additional votes. You can use this controlling power to make your religion the world religion and ideology the world ideology, for even more votes.
* ''VideoGame/{{Gex}}'s'' mother buys 51 percent ownership in UsefulNotes/{{NASA}} using the money inherited from Gex's great-uncle, fires everyone, sells the rockets to third world countries, and turns Mission Control into "[[ApesInSpace Space Monkeys]]", a SuckECheeses featuring robotic dancing chimps wearing spacesuits.

* The ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' episode "Snowball" has [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Bill Grates]] (actually the titular hamster in disguise) being the majority shareholder of the world, thus taking it over before Brain can, owning a 51% share.

* In ''Anime/YuGiOh'', Seto Kaiba is given two percent of the shares to his stepfather's company Kaiba Corp, but has to use them to make 100 times their worth within a year's time. Seto does this by buying 51% of a company and threatening to close it and put everyone out of work unless the original owner buys it back for five times it value, which he agrees to for the sake of the employees. It's implied Seto repeats this with other companies to work up the needed money to please his stepfather. He later takes over Kaiba Corp itself with the same strategy.

** In the episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS3E21FutureStock Future Stock]]", That Guy manages to get controlling interest in Planet Express from Zoidberg. For a sandwich.

* In Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Discworld/MakingMoney'', Topsy Lavish owned 50% of the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork and managed to become Chairman because her dog, Mr. Fusspot, owned the crucial 1%. When she died she left all her shares to her dog and appointed Moist von Lipwig the dog's guardian, effectively making him chairman. The other members of the board want the dog dead; the Guild of Assassins have signalled to Moist von Lipwig that should the dog die, he is next . . .