Most people who own a piece of the world's biggest companies never picked those companies one by one. Their savings sit in a pension plan or an index fund, and the fund buys every stock in the index for them. So the biggest names on a company's list of owners are often firms that hold money for millions of savers.
That makes a simple question hard to answer online, because lists of top owners mix figures from different years and price a share count from a decade ago at today's price. Some also blur a founder's own shares with the shares his charity holds. Two sites can show the same person owning very different amounts, and neither says which date it means.
The best answers come from public filings, and each one carries a date. A company's yearly proxy statement lists its directors, its top officers and anyone who holds more than 5% of its shares. Large fund managers report what they hold every quarter, while company insiders report each sale or purchase within days.
For Microsoft, those filings show who holds the shares and who casts the votes. Crypto traders who follow Microsoft's price from a stablecoin balance can trade it through BloFin's MSFTUSDT Perpetual, a contract that tracks the share price and sits apart from that list of owners.
Who owns Microsoft stock?
Microsoft's largest owners are fund managers: Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street held 1,576,619,967 shares on June 30, 2026, or 21.2% of the company. Former CEO Steve Ballmer would be the largest individual holder if he still owns the shares Microsoft last reported for him, on September 30, 2014, while Bill Gates holds under 1%, by Forbes' estimate.
Microsoft had 7,426,426,719 shares on September 30, 2026, held by 73,581 shareholders of record (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement). Each share carries one vote, and holders of record are the names on the company's own list. Most people hold their shares through a broker, which keeps them in its name for its clients, so far more people own a stake than that list shows.
Today's leaders own very little by comparison, since Microsoft's 18 directors and top officers held 2,139,607 shares as a group on September 30, 2026, about 0.03% of the company (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement). That is a big change from the early years, when the founders held most of it.
Holder | Where the figure comes from | Shares | Share of Microsoft |
|---|---|---|---|
Vanguard | its two advisers' 13F reports, June 30, 2026 | 653,599,648 | 8.8% |
BlackRock | its 13F report, June 30, 2026 | 607,367,113 | 8.2% |
State Street | its 13F report, June 30, 2026 | 315,653,206 | 4.3% |
Steve Ballmer | Microsoft's 2014 proxy, the last count disclosed for him | 333,254,734 | 4.5% if he still holds them |
Bill Gates | Forbes estimate, September 2026 | none disclosed since 2019 | under 1% |
Directors and top officers | Microsoft's proxy, September 30, 2026 | 2,139,607 | 0.03% |
Vanguard's figure adds the reports of its two advisers, Vanguard Capital Management (source: Vanguard Capital Management 13F, June 2026) and Vanguard Portfolio Management (source: Vanguard Portfolio Management 13F, June 2026). BlackRock's comes from its own 13F (source: BlackRock 13F, June 2026), and so does State Street's (source: State Street 13F, June 2026). The fund managers' percentages divide those shares by the 7,425,545,491 shares Microsoft had on July 23, 2026 (source: Microsoft 10-K for fiscal 2026). Ballmer's figure divides his 2014 count by the September 30, 2026 total. To see what the company does and how its stock is listed, start with what Microsoft stock is.
Microsoft's largest institutional shareholders
Microsoft's largest institutional shareholders are Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street, three of the largest index-fund firms in the US. Their reports for June 30, 2026 show Vanguard with 653.6 million shares, BlackRock with 607.4 million and State Street with 315.7 million. Much of that stake sits in index funds, which buy Microsoft because it is part of the index.
Those quarterly reports are called Form 13F, and fund managers send them to the US market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Any fund manager that runs $100 million or more in US-listed stocks must file one, listing each stock it holds at the end of the quarter (source: SEC, Form 13F FAQ). Vanguard now files through two advisers: Vanguard Capital Management held 485,192,007 Microsoft shares (source: Vanguard Capital Management 13F, June 2026) and Vanguard Portfolio Management held 168,407,641 (source: Vanguard Portfolio Management 13F, June 2026). BlackRock split its 607,367,113 shares across 24 lines for the BlackRock firms that manage them (source: BlackRock 13F, June 2026). State Street filed a single line of 315,653,206 shares (source: State Street 13F, June 2026).
Microsoft's own proxy shows smaller numbers for two of them, listing Vanguard Capital Management at 555,988,240 shares, from a Schedule 13G filed on April 30, 2026. It lists BlackRock at 540,020,228, from a 13G update filed on February 13, 2024 (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement). A 13G is a separate form that an investor files once it owns more than 5% of a company, and it is updated far less often than a 13F. Against the September 30, 2026 share count, the proxy's figures work out to 7.5% for Vanguard and 7.3% for BlackRock, while the 13Fs give 8.8% and 8.2%. Each number is right for its own form and date, so a percentage means little without both.
Being the top holder here means running other people's money. An index fund buys Microsoft because the index includes it, in line with the company's size, and the fund's investors own units of the fund. Owning the shares and casting their votes can also be split. In its 13G, Vanguard reported sole voting power over 73,430,154 of its 555,988,240 shares, while BlackRock reported sole voting power over 487,219,696 of its 540,020,228 (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement).
The 13Fs split owning from voting too, with different numbers. Vanguard Capital Management reports no voting authority over its 485,192,007 shares (source: Vanguard Capital Management 13F, June 2026), and Vanguard Portfolio Management reports none over its 168,407,641 (source: Vanguard Portfolio Management 13F, June 2026). State Street reports sole voting authority over 38,135,141 of its 315,653,206, about 12.1% (source: State Street 13F, June 2026). BlackRock's lines add up to sole voting authority over 549,491,272 of its 607,367,113, about 90.5% (source: BlackRock 13F, June 2026). So the firm with the most shares is the one that reports the smallest voting role on its quarterly form.
How much of Microsoft does Bill Gates own?
Bill Gates owns less than 1% of Microsoft, by a Forbes estimate updated in September 2026. The last count Microsoft published for him was 102,992,934 shares on October 8, 2019, or 1.34% of the company at the time. He left the board in March 2020, and no filing has had to show his stake since then.
That 2019 count comes from the last proxy to list him as a director (source: Microsoft 2019 proxy statement). Directors must report their shares, and Gates stepped down from the board on March 13, 2020 to focus on his charity work (source: Microsoft, board change, March 2020). Once he left, Microsoft stopped listing him. With less than 5% of the shares, he has no 13G to file either, so every newer figure is an estimate. Forbes says that after Gates gave Microsoft shares worth billions to the trust that funds the Gates Foundation in 2022, his own stake fell below 1% (source: Forbes, Bill Gates profile).
If Gates still held the full 2019 count, it would be 1.4% of the shares on September 30, 2026. The percentage would rise because Microsoft has bought back shares since then, leaving fewer in total. A figure of 1.3% or 1.4% for him repeats that 2019 count, while the Forbes estimate counts the shares he gave away after it.
How Bill Gates went from 45% to under 1% of Microsoft
Gates held about 45% of Microsoft right after it went public at $21 a share on March 13, 1986. Fortune reported at the time that the listing put a market value of $350 million on the stake he kept (source: Fortune, Microsoft IPO). From there his share of the company shrank in steps, through decades of sales and gifts.
Date | Gates' Microsoft shares | Share of Microsoft | Filing or report |
|---|---|---|---|
March 1986 | not stated | about 45% | Fortune |
September 10, 1999 | 787,055,600 (before the 2003 split) | 15.3% | Microsoft 1999 proxy |
September 13, 2013 | 377,989,165 | 4.52% | Microsoft 2013 proxy |
September 30, 2014 | 297,992,934 | 3.61% | Microsoft 2014 proxy |
October 8, 2019 | 102,992,934 | 1.34% | Microsoft 2019 proxy |
September 2026 | none disclosed | under 1% (estimate) | Forbes |
His share count grew at first through nine stock splits from 1987 to 2003, which turned each share bought at the IPO into 288. Microsoft's nine stock splits shows how each one worked. A split hands every owner more shares without changing the percentage, so the fall from 45% to about 1% came from what Gates sold and what he gave away.
The Gates Foundation Trust's Microsoft exit
The Gates Foundation Trust had left Microsoft by the end of March 2026. Its 13F showed 7,691,207 Microsoft shares on December 31, 2025, and its next report, for March 31, 2026, lists none. The trust manages the money that funds the Gates Foundation, so those shares belonged to the charity, kept apart from Gates' own stake.
The December 2025 report valued the 7,691,207 shares at about $3.7 billion, roughly 0.1% of Microsoft (source: Gates Foundation Trust 13F, December 2025). The March 2026 report lists 22 holdings and no Microsoft line, which dates the exit to between January and March 2026 (source: Gates Foundation Trust 13F, March 2026). The trust runs well over $100 million in US-listed stocks, so it must file a 13F every quarter (source: SEC, Form 13F FAQ). That is why its exit shows up in public filings while Gates' own trades stay private.
The exit fits the foundation's plan. Gates said in May 2025 that the foundation will close on December 31, 2045, and that he will give away almost all his wealth through it over 20 years (source: The NonProfit Times, May 2025). A charity that plans to spend its money down sells shares to raise cash for grants. So the trust's exit tells you about the foundation's plan, and very little about the shares Gates still holds in his own name.
Paul Allen's Microsoft shares
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen last appeared in the company's ownership table in 1999, with 260,723,896 shares, or 5.1%. He left the board in November 2000, and his stake stopped being reported. Allen died in 2018, and his estate is selling his assets and giving the money to charity, as he instructed.
The 1999 proxy named only two people with more than 5% of Microsoft: Gates and Allen (source: Microsoft 1999 proxy statement). A year later, the 2000 proxy named Gates alone above that line. It said Allen would leave the board at the November 9, 2000 meeting and stay on as a senior strategy adviser (source: Microsoft 2000 proxy statement). With Allen off the board and below 5%, Microsoft had no reason to list him again. So the number of shares he held when he died never appeared in a Microsoft filing.
What happens to his wealth is public. The Portland Trail Blazers went up for sale in 2025 under Allen's order to sell his sports teams and send all estate proceeds to charity (source: NBA.com, May 2025). Any Microsoft shares the estate held fall under the same order, but the estate has no duty to report its sales, so how many shares remain, if any, is unknown.
How much Microsoft stock does Steve Ballmer own?
Former CEO Steve Ballmer owned 333,254,734 Microsoft shares on September 30, 2014, the last count Microsoft disclosed for him and 4.04% of the company at the time. He ran Microsoft from 2000 until he retired as CEO in February 2014. No filing has shown his count since, so any newer figure for him is an estimate.
The 2014 count comes from the last proxy to list him, published the year he retired as CEO. He was not among the directors it put up for election (source: Microsoft 2014 proxy statement). With no board seat and no filing showing a stake above 5%, he reports no trades, and his exact count today is known only to him.
His percentage has risen anyway. Microsoft had 8,255,024,407 shares in September 2014 and 7,426,426,719 in September 2026, which is 10.0% fewer, mainly because the company keeps buying back its own shares. If Ballmer still holds 333,254,734 shares, they now make up 4.5% of Microsoft instead of 4.0%, without his buying a single extra share.
Steve Ballmer's Microsoft dividend income
Microsoft pays a dividend of $0.98 a share each quarter from December 10, 2026, after an 8% raise in September. On his 2014 count of 333,254,734 shares, that comes to about $326.6 million a quarter and about $1.3 billion a year. It is an estimate, and it assumes he still holds every one of those shares.
Microsoft announced the raise from $0.91 to $0.98 on September 15, 2026, and the dividend is paid on December 10 to holders on record on November 19 (source: Microsoft dividend announcement, September 2026). Multiplying 333,254,734 shares by $0.98 gives $326,589,639 for one quarter, and four quarters at that rate give $1,306,358,557. If he has sold some shares since 2014, the real figure is lower. Each raise to Microsoft's dividend lifts that figure in step.
Who runs Microsoft and how much stock its executives own
Satya Nadella runs Microsoft as chairman and chief executive officer, having become CEO in February 2014 and chairman in June 2021. Amy Hood is the chief financial officer, and Judson Althoff has been CEO of the Microsoft Commercial Business since October 2025, according to the company's fiscal 2026 annual report.
The same report lists the other top officers: Brad Smith as vice chair and president, Takeshi Numoto as chief marketing officer and Amy Coleman as chief human resources officer (source: Microsoft 10-K for fiscal 2026). Their stakes are small next to the founders': on September 30, 2026, CEO Satya Nadella owned 918,226 shares, including 431,464 held in grantor retained annuity trusts. Hood owned 459,226, Smith 372,454 and Althoff 74,442, and Nadella's holding works out to about 0.01% of Microsoft (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement).
Top officers must keep a minimum stake. Microsoft's rules require Nadella to hold stock worth 15 times his base salary and the other named officers eight times theirs, and each of them complied with that policy in fiscal 2026 (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement).
Nadella's trades show up on Form 4, the report an insider files within days of a sale or purchase. On September 1, 2026, he sold 86,525 shares in eight batches, at average prices from $498.24 to $505.20. The sales followed a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan that he adopted on March 8, 2026 (source: Satya Nadella Form 4, September 2026). Adding up the eight batches, the sale raised about $43.4 million at an average of $501.46 a share. A 10b5-1 plan is a written plan that fixes the size and timing of future trades in advance, so each sale follows a schedule set months earlier.
Famous investors who own Microsoft stock
Among well-known investors, Norway's sovereign wealth fund stands out, owning 1.27% of Microsoft on June 30, 2026 (source: NBIM, Microsoft holding). Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, by contrast, is missing from the list: its quarterly report for June 30, 2026 shows no Microsoft shares at all.
Berkshire filed that report on August 14, 2026, and none of the 89 lines in its holdings table is Microsoft (source: Berkshire Hathaway 13F, June 2026). People often ask because the two companies share a history. Gates sat on Berkshire's board while he was still a Microsoft director, as Microsoft's 2014 proxy shows (source: Microsoft 2014 proxy statement).
Norway's Government Pension Fund Global, run by Norges Bank Investment Management, held Microsoft shares worth $35.1 billion on June 30, 2026. It lists that as a 1.27% ownership share and a 1.27% voting share (source: NBIM, Microsoft holding). Because the fund prints both numbers for each company it holds, you can see that its say at Microsoft's meeting matches its stake.
How Microsoft shareholders vote
Microsoft shareholders get one vote per share at the annual meeting. The 2026 meeting is on December 8, 2026 at 11.30AM ET (4.30PM UTC). Anyone who held shares at the close of business on September 30, 2026 can vote. The proxy, dated October 21, 2026, lists 12 board nominees, executive pay, the auditor and four shareholder proposals.
The meeting is held online, and the proxy describes a board in which 11 of the 12 nominees are independent, with Nadella the one exception (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement). The board asks shareholders to vote against all four shareholder proposals. One asks for more detail on how Microsoft will meet its climate goals. Two ask for reports on human rights checks and on its data work in conflict areas. The last asks that the chair and the CEO be two different people. That one comes from the New York State Common Retirement Fund, and it asks the board to adopt a policy that splits the two roles. Each proposal needs a majority of the votes cast to pass.
Microsoft has a single class of stock with equal voting rights, so voting power follows ownership. Directors face election every year, and holders of 15% of the shares can call a special meeting (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement). That gives the big fund managers, and the funds they run, a large say in every vote. Meta works very differently, because its founder controls the vote through a second class of shares, as Meta's dual-class shares shows.
Say you own 10 Microsoft shares through a broker, which sends you a form to cast those 10 votes out of 7,426,426,719 shares that can vote. Fund managers with hundreds of millions of shares carry far more weight, but your vote still counts in full. Vanguard's two advisers alone held 653.6 million shares at the end of June, more than 65 million times as many as your 10. Microsoft expects to report the results in a Form 8-K within four business days of the meeting (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement).
Shareholders can also put items on the ballot, which is how this year's four proposals got there. For the 2027 meeting, a proposal to be printed in Microsoft's proxy under SEC Rule 14a-8 must arrive by 8.30PM ET on June 24, 2027 (12.30AM UTC on June 25). Shareholders using proxy access to nominate directors must send their nominations between May 25 and June 24, 2027 (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement).
What changes Microsoft's ownership over time
Microsoft's ownership changes in three main ways. First, the company buys back its own shares, which shrinks the total and lifts every remaining holder's percentage. Index funds grow or shrink with savers' money and with Microsoft's weight in each index. Founders, officers and charities sell or give away shares on their own schedules.
Buybacks have the steadiest effect, since the share count fell from 8,255,024,407 in September 2014 to 7,426,426,719 in September 2026. Every holder who stood still now owns about 11% more of the company than before. In fiscal 2026 alone, which ended on June 30, 2026, Microsoft bought back 36 million shares for $16.7 billion (source: Microsoft 10-K for fiscal 2026). Those repurchases are part of the cash Microsoft returns to its owners each year, next to the dividend.
Each filing runs on its own calendar, which tells you when to look again. Fund managers' 13F reports for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 are due by November 16, 2026 (source: SEC, Form 13F FAQ). Microsoft's proxy comes once a year, in October, and insiders' Form 4 reports arrive within days of each trade. Anyone can read them for free on EDGAR, the SEC's filing database. Search for Microsoft to see the proxy and the insiders' reports, or search for a fund manager to open its latest 13F.
Keep a few limits in mind when you read them. A 13F shows only long positions, only at the end of a quarter, and it can arrive up to 45 days later (source: SEC, Form 13F FAQ). By the time you see it, a fund may have changed its holding. People who hold under 5% of a company and have no board seat, like Gates and Ballmer today, file nothing at all.
Ownership news can still move the share price. A large sale by an insider, a fund cutting its stake or a close vote at the annual meeting can all make headlines. Traders who want to act on those moves from a crypto balance can follow the live price on the MSFTUSDT Perpetual page.
Microsoft ownership and the MSFT perpetual
A position in BloFin's MSFTUSDT Perpetual leaves Microsoft's list of owners unchanged. The contract tracks Microsoft's share price, is settled in USDT and allows leverage of 1x to 20x. Holding it gives you no Microsoft shares, no vote at Microsoft's meetings and no dividend, so its traders never appear among the owners.
BloFin's stock futures notice ties each of these contracts to a basket of tokenized-stock indices already trading in the market. They come with no shareholder rights (source: BloFin stock futures notice). The contract details list MSFTUSDT with USDT settlement and a minimum order of 0.01 MSFT, so you can start small (source: BloFin MSFTUSDT contract details). What the MSFT perpetual is explains its index, margin and liquidation rules.
The two routes suit two different goals. A vote at Microsoft's meetings or its $0.98 dividend comes only with shares held by each record date: September 30, 2026 for the December 2026 meeting and November 19, 2026 for the dividend paid on December 10. If you want to trade Microsoft's price from a crypto balance, long or short, the perpetual does that without putting your name on any list. Funding payments between longs and shorts are the running cost of holding it.
Leverage cuts both ways. A position at 20x can be closed out by a move of a few percent, and how leverage and liquidation work shows where that line sits. BloFin's guide to the TradFi assets it lists names Microsoft among its US stock perpetuals.
Looking to trade Microsoft's share price from your crypto balance? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and go to the MSFTUSDT Perpetual trading page.
Frequently asked questions
When did Steve Ballmer pass Bill Gates as Microsoft's largest single shareholder?
The switch shows up in Microsoft's 2014 proxy. On September 30, 2014, Ballmer held 333,254,734 shares against Gates' 297,992,934 (source: Microsoft 2014 proxy statement). Both counts had been falling for years, Gates' far faster. In September 2000, Gates held 731,749,668 shares and Ballmer 239,626,832 (source: Microsoft 2000 proxy statement). Adjusted for Microsoft's 2-for-1 split in February 2003, which doubled every holder's share count, those 2000 holdings equal 1,463,499,336 and 479,253,664. By September 2014, Gates' split-adjusted count had fallen by 1,165,506,402 shares and Ballmer's by 145,998,930, which put Ballmer in first place among individuals.
How many shareholders of record does Microsoft have?
Microsoft had 73,581 shareholders of record on September 30, 2026 (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement), down from 92,626 on October 8, 2019 (source: Microsoft 2019 proxy statement). On September 30, 2014, the list held 112,083 names (source: Microsoft 2014 proxy statement). So the record list has shrunk by about a third in 12 years.
Can you attend Microsoft's annual meeting online?
Microsoft holds its annual meeting online only, at virtualshareholdermeeting.com/MSFT26 for the December 8, 2026 meeting. To take part as a shareholder, you need the 16-digit control number from your proxy card, voting form or proxy email. You can send questions in advance at proxyvote.com from October 22, and a transcript and recording go up on Microsoft's investor site afterward (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement).
Who is Microsoft's lead independent director?
Sandra Peterson is Microsoft's lead independent director, a role that leads the board's independent members while Nadella serves as both chairman and CEO. She has been a director since 2015, chairs the governance and nominating committee and is an operating partner at the private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement).
Who is joining and leaving Microsoft's board in 2026?
Reid Hoffman, a director for nine years, and Hugh Johnston, who chairs the audit and finance committee, are leaving Microsoft's board at the December 8, 2026 meeting. The board has nominated John Collison, co-founder and president of Stripe, whose term would begin that day if shareholders elect him (source: Microsoft 2026 proxy statement). Collison held no Microsoft shares on September 30, 2026, so he would join with no stake.
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Primary sources include Microsoft's 2026 proxy statement, its fiscal 2026 10-K and its 1999, 2000, 2014 and 2019 proxy statements, the June 2026 Form 13F reports of Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street and Berkshire Hathaway, the Gates Foundation Trust's 13F reports, Satya Nadella's September 2026 Form 4, the SEC's Form 13F FAQ, Microsoft's March 2020 board announcement and September 2026 dividend announcement, Norges Bank Investment Management, Forbes, Fortune, The NonProfit Times and NBA.com. BloFin's sources are its stock futures notice and its MSFTUSDT contract details, current as of October 27, 2026.
Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold Microsoft in any form. Ownership figures for people who no longer file, such as Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, are estimates, and fund holdings in 13F reports can be weeks out of date by the time they are published. The MSFTUSDT Perpetual gives you no shares, votes or dividends, its funding payments can cost you while you hold it, and a leveraged position can be liquidated if Microsoft's price moves against you. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.