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Bill Gates Becomes the First Person Worth $100 Billion as Microsoft Stock Peaks
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Amid the late-1990s technology boom, the soaring price of Microsoft stock briefly pushed Bill Gates's net worth past $100 billion in 1999, making him the first person ever to reach that figure — a 'centibillionaire' — on paper. The peak (commonly reported around $101 billion) reflected his roughly 18% stake in the company at the height of the dot-com bubble; adjusted for inflation it would be well over $150 billion in today's dollars. No one else would join the $100-billion club until Jeff Bezos in 2017. Gates's fortune later fell as the bubble burst and as he transferred tens of billions of dollars to his foundation.
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Related Accomplishments
2026
Gates Foundation Trust Sells Off the Last of Its Microsoft Stock
In the first quarter of 2026, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust sold its remaining Microsoft shares, fully exiting a position in the very company that created Gates's fortune — capping a long, deliberate diversification away from the stock. The endowment that funds Gates's philanthropy, managed separately from its grant-making through Cascade, is now anchored instead by Berkshire Hathaway, Waste Management, railroads, and heavy-equipment makers. The sale underscored how thoroughly Gates's giving had decoupled from Microsoft's day-to-day fortunes.
2026
Gates's Charitable Endowment Is Now Led by Berkshire, Not Microsoft
By 2026, the publicly disclosed stock portfolio of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust — the endowment that funds Gates's philanthropy — was led not by Microsoft but by Berkshire Hathaway, Waste Management, Canadian National Railway, Caterpillar, and Deere. Decades of diversification, plus Warren Buffett's stock gifts, left it concentrated in railroads, waste, heavy equipment, and Buffett's conglomerate, while Microsoft — the source of the original fortune — had largely been sold down. The unglamorous, value-oriented mix reflects the long stewardship of Gates's money manager, Michael Larson, through Cascade Investment.
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