Bill Gates sells 4.6M shares of Microsoft (2024)

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Bill Gates sells 4.6M shares of Microsoft? ›

For the very first time in the history of Microsoft, Bill Gates, the founder of the world's giant software conglomerate is no longer its major shareholder.

Bill Gates – 102,992,934 Shares – 1.38%

Since stepping down in 2020, he has stopped publicly reporting his ownership of Microsoft.

Here's a fascinating fact: If Bill Gates hadn't sold his Microsoft shares, he would be a trillionaire today! I doubt he regrets it though. Having almost 100% of your net worth tied to one stock is always risky - even for a company as big as Microsoft.

Vanguard owns the most shares of Microsoft (MSFT).

The reasons behind these sales are not explicitly stated, but speculation suggests that Gates may simply be honoring his commitment to environmental causes and reducing his environmental impact.

In June 2006, Gates announced that he would transition out of his role at Microsoft to dedicate more time to philanthropy.

From the time Microsoft went public, Bill Gates started to diversify. He would sell his stock in Microsoft slowly so it would not affect the price. He would then buy stocks of other tech companies. He was the king of the industry at the time and had a good idea of which companies to buy.

Buffett admits to making multiple mistakes on tech

But unlike insurance and banking, technology is not something that he's all that comfortable investing in, simply due to the unpredictability of it. He says the reason he didn't invest in Microsoft years ago was simply due to "stupidity."

What Happened: Gates stepped down as the CEO of Microsoft in 2000 and later left the board of directors in 2020. The co-founder of the software giant remains a large shareholder in the company through his own holdings and the stock holdings of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust.

Microsoft is a publicly traded company, so it's owned by the shareholders who own its stock. The largest shareholders are asset management companies and individuals, including: Vanguard Group, which owns 8.6% of the company. BlackRock, which owns 7.1%

Who owns the most shares of Google? ›

Google's parent company has some large shareholders; here's who owns the most. As you might expect, Alphabet's (GOOGL 0.51%) (GOOG 0.71%) largest shareholders are its two co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Between the two, they own a 6% stake in the megacap tech giant.

Is Microsoft owned by Google? Microsoft is not owned by Google. The two are intense competitors and have been for a long time. They compete across a range of businesses like cloud computing, enterprise software, digital advertising, hardware, and artificial intelligence.

The latest closing stock price for Microsoft as of September 06, 2024 is 401.70. The all-time high Microsoft stock closing price was 466.73 on July 05, 2024.

What stocks is Bill Gates buying now? In the recent quarter Bill Gates has bought (BRK.B) BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC CL-B (added shares +42.29%).

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which invests the Gates Foundation's endowment, bought Nvidia shares for the first time on record, a SEC filing revealed this week.

Before Musk started his efforts to buy social media platform Twitter, now known as X, the billionaire executive rarely sold Tesla shares. Most of the time, his sales were tied to covering tax bills he faced due to the exercise of stock options.

Gates is estimated to be worth roughly $127 billion, according to Forbes. Regulatory filings reveal that nearly $46 billion of that total is held by the Trust. This includes more than 38 million shares of Microsoft stock, valued at more than $15 billion. Investors could take a lesson from Gates.

Microsoft net worth as of August 30, 2024 is $3100.62B. Microsoft Corporation is one of the largest broad-based technology providers in the world. The company dominates the PC software market with more than 80% of the market share for operating systems.

After a short transition period, Gates relinquished day-to-day oversight of Microsoft in June 2008—although he remained chairman of the board—in order to devote more time to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In February 2014 he stepped down as chairman but continued to serve as a board member until 2020.

According to Microsoft's latest financial reports and stock price the company's current number of shares outstanding is 7,433,000,000. At the end of 2024 the company had 7,433,000,000 shares outstanding.