Steve Ballmer’s Los Angeles Clippers have rebounded on the court after a slow start to the NBA season, but the net worth of the world’s richest sports team owner was hammered Thursday morning by a 12% decline in Microsoft after the company reported earnings.
It would mean a $14 billion loss on paper for Ballmer, who was Microsoft CEO for 14 years and is still its largest individual shareholder with roughly 4% of company shares. Ballmer would be worth $133 billion if the Microsoft stock decline holds, according to Forbes’ real-time billionaires list. Denver Broncos owner Rob Walton would then nudge past Ballmer as the richest owner in sports at $136 billion.
After centi-billionaires Walton and Ballmer, there is a steep drop in net worth among people who hold control positions in major sports franchises. Miriam Adelson’s family owns the Dallas Mavericks and is worth $36 billion, per Forbes. Next up are fellow NBA owners Dan Gilbert (Cleveland Cavaliers) at $30 billion and Robert Pera (Memphis Grizzlies) at $27 billion.
Microsoft reported earnings on Wednesday after the market closed. It beat Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, and cloud revenue topped $50 billion for the first time. But the stock dropped over concerns of a slowdown in the cloud business and soaring AI spending.
In 2014, Ballmer stepped down as Microsoft CEO. Months later, he bought the Clippers for $2 billion, more than triple the highest price ever paid for an NBA team at that time. He was worth $20 billion then, but now ranks among the world’s richest people, as Microsoft’s stock price soared on its cloud strategy and AI potential.
The value of the Clippers rose as Ballmer helped turn around the once moribund franchise, and he spent $2 billion on the Intuit Dome, which opened last year. The team ranked fourth in Sportico’s NBA team valuations at $6.72 billion.
The team and Ballmer are still facing an NBA investigation and lawsuit tied to a no-show endorsement deal from Aspiration (now called Catona) for star player Kawhi Leonard. This month, Ballmer’s attorneys filed a demurrer that called the accusations against him “salacious” and “false.”