Steve Ballmer net worth 2022: Is former Microsoft CEO the richest person in sports?

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who owns the Los Angeles Clippers, has been named the richest sports team owner for 2022 by Forbes.

According to Forbes, the 66-year-old business entrepreneur has a net worth of $91.4 billion. However, while he is the richest person in sports today, the majority of Ballmer’s fortune stems from a share in Microsoft, the world’s largest software producer.

After dropping out of Stanford University’s business school, Ballmer, who graduated from Harvard University with bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and economics, joined his former Harvard classmate Bill Gates at Gates’ software start-up Microsoft as its business manager in 1980, at the age of 24.

Ballmer moved to the position of president before succeeding Gates as CEO in 2000.

He was the CEO of Microsoft until 2014, when he stepped down. In the same year, he paid $2 billion for the Los Angeles Clippers. Forbes currently values the squad at $3.3 billion.

According to Bloomberg, Ballmer owns about 4% of Microsoft. His interest was last revealed in Microsoft’s 2014 proxy, when he reportedly had 333 million shares. According to the site, he has now sold 14 million shares, covering nearly one-third of the Clippers’ purchase price.

Ballmer Group was created in 2014 by him and his wife Connie Snyder. The philanthropic vehicle helps to increase economic mobility for children and families in the United States.

Since his retirement, Ballmer has increased his charity, placing nearly $2 billion into a donor-advised fund that focuses on poverty. He allegedly spent $59 million in Social Solutions, which creates software for organizations and government agencies, in 2018.

Ballmer is currently placed 11th on Forbes’ real-time billionaires list, which crowned Tesla and SpaceX creator Elon Musk the richest person on the planet today with a net worth of $278.4 billion. With a net worth of $107 billion, Gates ranks sixth on the list.

Ballmer is wealthier than Mark Zuckerberg, chairman and CEO of Meta, formerly known as Facebook, who is rated 19th on Forbes’ list with a net worth of $60.8 billion.

Meanwhile, Mukesh Ambani of the Mumbai Indians ($90.7 billion), François Pinault of Stade Rennais FC ($40.4 billion), Dietrich Mateschitz of the New York Red Bulls and RB Leipzig ($27.4 billion), and Daniel Gilbert of the Cleveland Cavaliers ($22 billion) round out the top five on Forbes’ list of the richest sports team owners for 2022.