For the first time in
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, Ballmer and Allen all amassed massive fortunes building Microsoft into a software giant. Gates became the wealthiest man on the planet, with a fortune of $77 billion. Ballmer got $20 billion, good for 34th richest in the world. And Allen, one of Gates' childhood buddies, is now worth $16 billion, making him the 55th richest.
Gates 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 firm 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. He and his wife Melinda traveled to Cambodia in April as part of his ongoing mission to eradicate malaria from the country. He dubbed this week “mosquito week” to focus on efforts to fight mosquitoes—one of the world’s biggest killers, more deadly than sharks, he points out.
As Gates shifted his focus to philanthropy, Ballmer remained at Microsoft running the company. He turned in $120 billion in profit over his tenure but also let rivals
