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Bill Gates Business Milestones

The 1981 IBM deal that built an empire, the 1986 IPO at $21 a share, 13 years as the world's richest person — these 157verified business milestones follow Bill Gates from a Harvard dorm room to Microsoft's $500 billion market cap, Cascade Investment, and beyond.

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Business

2026

Bill Gates Accomplishments

Bill Gates Business Milestones

Gates Foundation Trust Sells Off the Last of Its Microsoft Stock

Gates's Charitable Endowment Is Now Led by Berkshire, Not Microsoft

Gates becomes 'much poorer' in 2026 as he accelerates giving and slips down the wealth rankings

Gates told Nadella his $1 billion OpenAI bet would 'burn'; Microsoft now holds a ~27% stake

Tax filings reveal $7.88 billion divorce payout to Melinda as Gates falls out of the world's top 10 richest

Gates reiterates that cryptocurrency 'has no value'

Gates reflects on Microsoft at 50 and credits Nadella's AI-era transformation

Bill Gates remains America's largest private farmland owner amid renewed debate

Gates Uses Shell Companies to Quietly Accumulate $113 Million Nebraska Farmland Portfolio

Breakthrough Energy Ventures Raises $839 Million Fund III with Food and Agriculture Focus

IRS Says Microsoft Owes $28.9 Billion in Back Taxes Over Offshore Profit Shifting

Bill Gates buys a ~$900 million Heineken stake, 'not a big beer drinker'

Backed UPSIDE Foods — first USDA-approved cultivated chicken receives regulatory green light

Elon Musk Alleges Bill Gates Held a Roughly $500 Million Short Bet Against Tesla

Upside Foods Achieves Unicorn Status in $400 Million Round Backed by Gates

Bill Gates Is the Top Shareholder of a Waste Giant Hit by Strikes and Environmental Penalties

New York Times Reports Misconduct Allegations Against Gates's Money Manager Michael Larson

Gates holds a multibillion-dollar stake in Caterpillar

Gates becomes a major shareholder of Deere & Company

Gates is the largest shareholder of water-and-hygiene giant Ecolab

Gates's Cascade joins a $4.7 billion buyout of Signature Aviation

Gates was for years the largest shareholder of Canadian National Railway

Gates is the largest shareholder of waste giant Republic Services

Bill Gates's Cascade Investment takes majority control of Four Seasons

Gates's Cottonwood Ag Management and Leading Harvest Launch Farmland Sustainability Certification Standard

Breakthrough Energy Ventures Leads $75 Million Series B in Nobell Foods for Soybean-Expressed Dairy Casein

Breakthrough Energy Ventures Backs Perfect Day Animal-Free Dairy Fermentation Platform

Bill Gates Participates in Impossible Foods' $500 Million Series G Funding Round

Cascade Investment Makes Gates the Largest Private Farmland Owner in the United States

Gates Farmland Portfolio Spans Nebraska, Arizona, California, North Dakota, Wyoming, and More

Cascade Investment Holds Approximately 47,000 Acres of Farmland in Arkansas — Its Second-Largest State Holding

Gates's Single Largest Farmland Holding Spans Approximately 69,000 Acres in Louisiana

Land Report Names Bill Gates the Largest Private Farmland Owner in the United States with Over 269,000 Acres Across 18 States

Pentagon cancels $10 billion JEDI contract with Microsoft amid Amazon legal challenge

Becomes the largest private farmland owner in the United States with 242,000 acres

Gates Steps Down From the Berkshire Hathaway Board

Gates-Backed Schrödinger, a Computational Drug-Discovery Firm, Goes Public

Breakthrough Energy Ventures Co-Leads $80 Million Series B in Nature's Fynd Fungal Protein

Breakthrough Energy Ventures Co-Leads $100 Million Round for Pivot Bio Nitrogen Microbes

Gates Calls Losing Mobile to Android His 'Greatest Mistake,' a $400 Billion Miss

Gates says he has paid over $10 billion in taxes — and should pay more

Breakthrough Energy Ventures Backs $90 Million Launch of Motif FoodWorks from Ginkgo Bioworks for Precision Fermentation Meat Proteins

Invested $55 Million in BioNTech Before COVID-19

Microsoft wins $10 billion JEDI Pentagon cloud contract over Amazon

Gates Invests $275 Million in Ginkgo Bioworks Synthetic Biology Platform

Gates Backs Impossible Foods — Plant-Based Beef Requiring 95% Less Land

Gates Invests in Memphis Meats (Upside Foods) — Cultivated Meat Without Slaughter

Gates Sells Corbis and the Bettmann Archive to China's Visual China Group

Gates Launches Breakthrough Energy Ventures with $1 Billion Climate Fund

Gates Invests in Carbon Engineering Direct Air Capture Startup

Microsoft's Bing Accused of Censoring Chinese-Language Searches Worldwide

Gates Hands the Chairmanship to John Thompson and Becomes Microsoft's 'Technology Advisor'

Microsoft buys Nokia's phone business in a bid to crack mobile

Resigned as Microsoft Chairman after nearly four decades

Microsoft Runs the Aggressive 'Scroogled' Smear Campaign Against Google

Gates Backs ResearchGate, the 'Facebook for Scientists'

Snowden Leaks Name Microsoft as the First Company in the NSA's PRISM Program

Gates Buys a 6% Stake in Spanish Construction Giant FCC

Gates Invests in Beyond Meat — Plant-Based Meat Reducing Land and Water Use

Invested in Impossible Foods to scale plant-based meat as a climate and food security solution

EU fines Microsoft $732 million for violating browser ballot consent decree

Co-authored 'Break the Immigration Impasse' op-ed with Warren Buffett and Sheldon Adelson

Senate Investigation Finds Microsoft Used Offshore Havens to Avoid Billions in U.S. Taxes

Supreme Court Upholds $290 Million Verdict Against Microsoft Word for Patent Infringement

Gates Co-Leads a Seed Round for Computational Drug-Discovery Startup Nimbus

Microsoft acquires Skype for $8.5 billion

Gates Foundation Trust Purchases Approximately 500,000 Shares of Monsanto — World's Largest Agricultural Biotech Company

Microsoft Accused of Vote-Rigging to Push Its Document Format Through ISO

Bill Gates Lobbies Congress to Lift H-1B Visa Caps, Drawing Worker-Advocate Criticism

Gates Renames His Personal Office bgC3, the Seed of Gates Ventures

European Commission Hits Microsoft With a Record €899 Million Non-Compliance Fine

Microsoft Makes a $44.6 Billion Bid for Yahoo

Gates is the largest shareholder of auto retailer AutoNation

Gates Co-Founds TerraPower to Develop Advanced Nuclear Reactors

Testified before Congress calling for H-1B reform, elimination of per-country green card limits, and fast-track residency for STEM graduates

Delivered 'A New Approach to Capitalism' speech at Davos — coined 'creative capitalism'

Testified before House Science Committee on immigration and U.S. innovation leadership

The 'Iowa Documents' Expose Microsoft's Internal Emails in Comes v. Microsoft