Steven Anthony Ballmer ( BAWL-mər; born March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and investor who was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and a co-founder of the Ballmer Group, a philanthropic investment company. As of February 2026, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated his personal wealth at around $145 billion, making him the thirteenth-richest person in the world, and the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List ranked him as the fourteenth-richest person with a net worth of $130 billion. Ballmer was hired by Bill Gates at Microsoft in 1980, and subsequently left the MBA program at Stanford University. He eventually became president in 1998, and replaced Gates as CEO on January 13, 2000. On February 4, 2014, Ballmer retired as CEO and was replaced by Satya Nadella; Ballmer remained on Microsoft's board of directors until August 19, 2014. Under Ballmer's leadership, a 14-year period, the company tripled sales and doubled profits, but lost its market dominance and missed out on 21st-century technology trends such as the ascendance of smartphones in the forms of iPhone and Android. Until a recent scandal, some claimed Ballmer's ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers as an improvement over previous owner Donald Sterling, citing his willingness to acquire superstar players and finance the construction of Intuit Dome.