Bill Gate
In the past two days, Gates has sold nearly 8 million shares of Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), bringing down his total to roughly 330 million.
That puts him behind Microsoft's former CEO Steve Ballmer who owns 333 million shares.
Ballmer, who was Microsoft's CEO until earlier this year, was one of Gates' first hires.
It's a passing of the torch for Gates who has always been the largest single owner of his company's stock. Gates now spends his time and personal fortune helping run the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation.
The foundation has spent $28.3 billion fighting hunger and poverty since its inception back in 1997.
Steve Ballmer
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.
1 comment:
No permanent champion... he floated the film nah.. how come he sold his shares
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