Bill Gates’ fortune has dropped $35 billion this year to $124 billion. Microsoft’s former CEO Steve Ballmer, who Gates hired, has a net worth of $172 billion now. That’s up by $26 billion in 2025. One secret is that Ballmer kept his Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) stock. Gates has given a lot of his money away. Ballmer owns 4% of Microsoft. Gates owns less than 1%
Gates has given billions of dollars to the Gates Foundation .He plans to give almost all the rest of his money to the organization between now and 2045. His former “partner” in the foundation was his wife Melinda French Gates. There are several rumors about how much she got in the breakup. Most numbers are between $25 billion and $30 billion.
Gates has diversified well beyond his Microsoft holdings. Many of these investments are held by his Cascade Investment LLC. Among these are cloud computing company Fungible, GitHub, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B) stock, high end Four Season hotels, and at some point, FedEx (NYSE: FDX), UPS, Deere, and a number of private companies.
Gates is also the largest owner of farmland in America at 242,000 acres. Some of this may be due to his concerns about global health and food insecurity. He said, “The agriculture sector is important. With more productive seeds we can avoid deforestation and help Africa deal with the climate difficulty they already face.” He could also be interested in the biofuels sector.
Bill Gates was the richest man in the world, Forbes reported, from 1995 to 2017, excluding 2008 and 2010-2013. This period covers 18 out of 23 years on that calendar with a consecutive period from 1995 to 2007
Gates is well behind the current global weather leader, Elon Musk, whose number stands at $361 billon
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