Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Bill Gates was almost overtaken by his former subordinates on the list of the world’s richest people. The wealth of Steve Ballmer, Gates’ former right-hand man at Microsoft, is only around US$6 billion from Gates.
Report Bloomberg Billionaires Index quoted on Tuesday (7/11/2023), said Ballmer was in fifth place with wealth of US$122 billion. Meanwhile, Gates is one rank above him with US$128 billion.
Ballmer’s wealth has indeed increased sharply. Three months ago, the gap between him and his former boss reached US$17 billion.
Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980. At that time he worked as an assistant to Gates who served as President Director.
His role at that time was business manager rather than personal assistant. In initial negotiations, Ballmer was paid US$50 thousand plus a bonus of 10% of his company’s profits, but Forbes said he agreed to exchange his bonus for shares when the company’s profits rose sharply.
Ballmer’s position is also increasing. In 2000 he served as CEO of Microsoft.
The 67 year old man decided to retire from Microsoft in 2014. At that time he pocketed 333 million shares or 4% of the total, and Bloomberg said he still holds the majority of his shares, which make his value reach US$100 billion.
It was AI technology that helped increase Ballmer’s wealth. The technology boom boosted Microsoft’s share price.
It is known that Microsoft invested in OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT chatbots. Over the past 10 months, Microsoft shares have skyrocketed 38%.
Meanwhile in Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Ballmer managed to surpass a number of other technology bosses. Including Meta boss, Mark Zuckerberg who is in 9th place with wealth of US$114 billion, Google founder Sergey Brin (10th place) with US$111 billion and Larry Page (18th place) with US$116 billion.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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