Bill Gates’ ex-assistant has rocketed up the list of the world’s richest people, and could soon overtake Microsoft’s world-famous cofounder and his former boss in net worth.
Steve Ballmer’s fortune has grown by an estimated $29 billion this year to about $115 billion, ranking him fifth on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He now trails Gates — in fourth place with $121 billion — by just $6 billion, compared to $17 billion three months ago. Ballmer is currently richer than Larry Ellison ($114 billion), Warren Buffett ($111 billion), Larry Page ($110 billion), Mark Zuckerberg ($108 billion), and Sergey Brin ($105 billion), the index shows.
Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 as assistant to the president, although he served as more of a business manager than a personal assistant. He originally negotiated a $50,000 base salary plus 10% of the profit growth he generated, but when his share of the profits grew excessive, he agreed to swap it for a significant equity stake, according to Forbes.
Gates’ trusted advisor steadily climbed the ranks to become Microsoft’s CEO in 2000. He retired from that role in 2014 with 333 million shares or a 4% stake, regulatory filings show. Bloomberg assumes that he’s retained most of those shares, giving him a position valued at over $100 billion today, based on Microsoft’s current stock price. He’s likely collected billions of dollars’ worth of dividends over the years too.
Ballmer’s wealth has ballooned this year in part because of the artificial-intelligence boom, which has boosted Microsoft stock. The computing giant’s investment in ChatGPT-parent OpenAI this spring has fueled hopes that it can disrupt Google-owner Alphabet’s dominant position in internet search, sending Microsoft shares up 38% in the past 10 months.
It’s worth underscoring that Ballmer is an anomaly among the 10 wealthiest people on Bloomberg’s rich list. Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault, Jeff Bezos, and the rest owe their wealth to stakes in companies they founded or still run, whereas Ballmer isn’t Microsoft’s founder or current CEO.
If he does leapfrog Gates, who has diversified his fortune away from Microsoft stock and donated large sums to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other charities, that would be a truly rare case where an employee winds up richer than his company’s founder.
