Ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Is a Billionaire: Let's Find Out His Annual Earnings & Net Worth

Steve Anthony Ballmer is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. The businessman is well recognized as the former CEO of Microsoft. Steve was the CEO of Microsoft from the year 2000 to 2014. His fourteen years of career has helped to achieve him great wealth as well as fame.

The former CEO of Microsoft earned a huge amount through his tenure at Microsoft. After the involvement in Microsoft, he is now the owner of American professional basketball team Los Angeles Clippers. Find out more about his career, earnings, net worth and many more.

Early Life of Steve Ballmer

Steve was born on March 24, 1956, in Detroit to Beatrice Dworkin and Frederic Henry Ballmer. His father was a manager at American Multinational Automaker Company Ford. Steve was involved in different extracurricular activities in his college life.

He was a manager for the Harvard Crimson football team. Also, he was the member of Fox Club. Most prominently, he grew up with Bill Gates. During his college days, he often scored more than Bill Gates.

In 1977, he graduated from Harvard University with a degree in applied mathematics and economics. After his college, he worked at Procter & Gamble as an assistant product manager.

After two years of involvement at Procter & Gamble, he shared an office with Jeffrey R. Immelt in General Electric. Later in 1980, he joined Microsoft Company.

Steve’s Career at Microsoft

Steve joined Microsoft on June 11, 1980, as the 30^th employee. In the year 1981, Ballmer owned 8% share of the company. Later in 2003, Ballmer sold 39.3 million shares of the company equating to approximately $955 million that resulted in the reduction of his ownership to only 4%. 

Ballmer continued to outgrow the company through different divisions in sales, operations, operating systems development. With his 13 years of service at Microsoft, he was made Executive Vice President for Sales and Support department in the year 1992.

As a vice president, he continuously worked for the welfare of the company that included the NET Framework. Later, in 1998, he was promoted to President of Microsoft making him number two in the company after CEO Bill Gates.

Steve Ballmer: Chief Executive Officier (2000-2014)

Steve was promoted as the CEO of the Microsoft on Jan 13, 2000. Previously, Steve handled the daily operations and company finances whereas Bill Gates handled technological vision of the company by residing as a chief software architect.

Upon becoming CEO, Ballmer felt the need of having detailed business justification in Microsoft. In the process of fulfillment of this need, he recruited B. Kevin Turner former CEO of Sam's Club in the post of Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer.

Ballmer’s stay at Microsoft resulted in share price stagnant of the company. The company managed to progress as its net income increased by 215 percent. Steve’s tenure at Microsoft helped to rise Microsoft’s annual growth rate to 16.4%. The profit continued to flow with the help of Windows and Office franchise.

As a CEO of Microsoft Steve continuously sacrificed his time in its improvisation. As a process of advancement, he invested an amount of $20 million for Enterprise Business which included new products like SQL Server, Windows Server, SharePoint, System Center. However, his strategy failed and attracted criticisms for Microsoft.  

In order to expand the hardware services in Microsoft, Steve launched Microsoft’s first ever computer device, a tablet called Microsoft Surface. This was followed by the purchase of Nokia mobile phone divisions. Steve Ballmer retired from Microsoft in 2013 after losing dollars in the Microsoft tablet and hardware purchase of Nokia phones. At present, Satya Nadella is the CEO of Microsoft.

Net worth and Salary of Steve Ballmer

The former CEO of Microsoft has the net worth of $39.2 billion. Steve Ballmer was ranked in the 9th position in the World's Richest Tech Billionaires in 2018. While residing in the post of CEO of Microsoft in 2009, Ballmer earned a total amount of $1,276,627, that included his base salary $665,833, cash bonus $600,000, other compensation of $10,794. 

He managed to earn $1.35 per year residing at Microsoft. Apart from Microsoft, Steve is also known for his involvement in his business, Los Angeles Clippers.

However, he made most of his net worth from Microsoft. He made up his worth from his 4% stake in Microsoft, which is equal to333 million shares of the company. Balmer sold more than $3.4 billion stock and earned over $4.4 billion worth of dividends over the years.

Talking more about Steve, he spent $2 billion to purchase Clippers in 2014. Ballmer is also a 4 percent stakeholder in Twitter. Moreover, he contributed $50 million to the University of Oregon.