This is getting painful to watch. He is right, you are wrong. He isn’t being pedantic, he is being precise.

“A public company is one that issues shares that are publicly traded, meaning the shares are available for anyone to buy and sell on the open market, usually very easily. Note that publicly traded companies are not publicly owned -- they are not owned or controlled by any government.”

https://www.fool.com/terms/p/publicly-traded-companies

Please explain the quote in my other comment from your source.

It really just seems like you're uncomfortable with the fact that you're wrong about this, having resorted to name calling. It's ok, this really is a common mistake to make. I do encourage you to read the Wikipedia links you sent though. I think they do a good job of explaining what I have said. Just remember that individuals are not the public. The public actually owns national parks. The whole public as an entity.

Actually I just found another Wikipedia page which may help elucidate this for you, if you're still having trouble with the links you posted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_ownership

I hope the first two lines will make things clear :-)

>Members of the public own stock, so the public owns stock.

You seem to be equating members of the public with the entirety of the public. You need to get this misunderstanding straightened out to correctly understand the concepts being discussed here.

If you're going to be a pedant, be right.