Bill Gates Now Owns Less of Microsoft Than Steve Ballmer
For the first time in Microsoft 's history, nearly 40 years after Bill Gates founded the company in 1975, he is no longer its largest individual shareholder. That title now belongs to Steve Ballmer, who served as CEO from 2000 to 2014.
In an April 30 filing, Gates revealed that he sold 4.6 million shares for roughly $186 million pre-tax. He now owns 330 million shares, 3 million less than Ballmer, his Harvard pal who later joined him at the Seattle company. Gates' cofounder Paul Allen, who apparently had a smaller stake than Gates from the outset, sold most of his shares years ago.
Gates became the richest person on the planet by growing Microsoft into a massive software giant and remained heavily involved in company operations until June 2008, when he stepped back to focus on giving away the fortune Microsoft made him. Gates has been the richest man in the world for 15 of the last 20 years, despite having already given away at least $28 billion. He now owns 4% of Microsoft, a stake worth $13.3 billion. The bulk of his fortune is kept in his private Cascade Investment.
He stepped down as chairman of the board in February and assumed the new role of technology advisor, planning to spend more of his time working with product managers at Microsoft. But he remains focused on philanthropy, dubbing this week 'mosquito week' to focus on efforts to fight mosquitos-one of the world's biggest killers, more deadly than sharks, he points out.
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