Steve Ballmer on Monday surpassed Bill Gates to become the world’s sixth-richest person, marking the first time the former chief executive of Microsoft Corp. has become richer than the company’s co-founder.
The move comes as Microsoft shares have surged to a new record, bringing their total gain this year to 21%. Through its partnership with OpenAI, the company has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence rally that has lifted the US stock market.
More than 90% of Ballmer’s $157.2 billion net worth is held in Microsoft shares, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Gates, meanwhile, has diversified his $156.7 billion fortune: About half of his wealth is held through Cascade Investments, which was created from proceeds from the sale of Microsoft shares and dividends. He also owns a $21 billion stake in waste-management company Republic Services Inc. through Cascade.
Gates, 68, has been slowly giving away his wealth through philanthropy. Together with his ex-wife Melinda French Gates and his friend Warren Buffett, Gates has invested billions of dollars of his personal wealth to create the $75 billion Gates Foundation, one of the world’s largest charitable organizations.
Since they started the foundation more than two decades ago, Gates and his ex-wife have donated nearly $60 billion from their personal wealth. French Gates recently stepped down as co-chair of the foundation and received $12.5 billion to use for her own charitable purposes.
In 2010, Gates, Andrew Gates and Buffett also founded the Giving Pledge, an organization that encourages the world’s richest people to give away most of their wealth during their lifetimes or in their wills. Ballmer, 68, who has not signed the Giving Pledge, has his own philanthropic work, but nowhere near on the scale of Gates.
Gates founded Microsoft with his friend Paul Allen in 1975 and led it until 2000, when Ballmer, one of the company’s early employees, replaced him as CEO. Ballmer retired in 2014 and became Microsoft’s largest shareholder that same year. He also purchased the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers in 2014 for $2 billion, an investment that is estimated to be worth $4.6 billion today.
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