Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's wealth ranking has rapidly climbed, approaching his former boss Bill Gates in value.
As of October 30th, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index showed that Steve Ballmer's wealth has increased by $31.2 billion year to date, with a net asset of $117 billion, ranking fifth on the global billionaire list, closely behind Bill Gates. Bill Gates currently has a net asset of $122 billion, only $5 billion higher than Ballmer, and within three months, the wealth gap between the two is $17 billion. That is to say, at the current rate of personal wealth growth, Steve Ballmer's wealth will soon surpass that of Bill Gates.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Steve Ballmer's wealth has surpassed Oracle co founder Larry Ellison, who has a net worth of $114 billion, Warren Buffett, who has a net worth of $113 billion, Google co founder Larry Page, who has a net worth of $112 billion, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google co founder Sergey Brin, who have a net worth of $110 billion 106 billion US dollars.
According to the annual wealth growth rate, among the top ten billionaires, Ballmer's wealth growth rate exceeded six this year, only lower than Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg.
Ballmer's wealth is attributed to the contract he negotiated when he first joined Microsoft in 1980. According to public sources, Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 as an assistant to the president. According to Forbes, Steve Ballmer initially negotiated a basic salary of $50000, plus a 10% increase in profits he created. However, when his profit share increased too much, he agreed to exchange it for a large amount of equity. Steve Ballmer steadily rose to the position of Microsoft and became its CEO.
However, relevant regulatory documents indicate that in 2014, when Steve Ballmer retired, he held 333 million shares or 4% of the shares. Bloomberg believes that he has retained most of his shares, and based on Microsoft's current stock price, his current position is worth over $100 billion. At the same time, he may have also received dividends worth billions of dollars over the years.
Ballmer's wealth has surged this year, and one important reason is that the explosion of ChatGPT has boosted Microsoft's stock price. Microsoft's investment in ChatGPT's parent company OpenAI has attracted market attention, causing Microsoft's stock price to rise by 38% in the past 10 months.
It is worth mentioning that, unlike Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and others, Steve Ballmer's wealth was not accumulated through entrepreneurial success as a founder, but rather started as a "working boy" at Microsoft and rose to fifth on the global billionaire list.