Crystals of oxobis(triphenylsilicon), O(SiPh3)2, are triclinic, space group P|, a = 11.301 (2), b = 9-539 (2), c = 8.771 (2) A, tt = 66.34 (1), fl = 114.35 (I), y = 114.24 (1) °, Z = 1. The structure was solved by direct methods using diffractometer data and refined by full-matrix least squares to R = 0.0374. The molecules are centrosymmetric, so that the SiOSi fragment is strictly linear: principal interatomic distances are Si-O 1.616 (1) A, and Si-C 1.864 (5) A; the central C6Si20 part of the molecule exhibits almost exact 3m symmetry.