(Bloomberg) — Steve Ballmer surpassed Bill Gates on Monday to become the world’s sixth-richest person, the first time the former CEO of Microsoft Corp. has outpaced the company’s co-founder.
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The move came as Microsoft shares surged to a new record, taking their total gain this year to 21%. The company, through its partnership with OpenAI, has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence rally that has lifted the U.S. stock market.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, more than 90% of Ballmer’s $157.2 billion net worth is in Microsoft stock. Gates, meanwhile, has diversified his $156.7 billion fortune: About half of it is held through Cascade Investment, which was created with proceeds from Microsoft stock sales and dividends. He also owns a $21 billion stake in waste management company Republic Services Inc. through Cascade.
Gates, 68, has been slowly shrinking his fortune through philanthropy. Along with his ex-wife Melinda French Gates and his friend Warren Buffett, Gates has funneled billions of dollars of his personal money into building 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 of their personal fortunes. French Gates recently stepped down as co-chair of the foundation, receiving $12.5 billion to use for her own charitable purposes.
In 2010, Gates, French Gates and Buffett also founded the Giving Pledge, an organization that encourages the world’s wealthiest people to give away the majority of their fortunes in their lifetime or will. Ballmer, 68, who has not signed the Giving Pledge, has his own philanthropic work, but not 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 first employees—replaced him as CEO. Ballmer retired in 2014 and became Microsoft’s largest shareholder that same year. He bought the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion in 2014, an investment worth an estimated $4.6 billion.
–With assistance from Sophie Alexander and Jack Witzig.
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