Steve Ballmer Just Received a $303 Million Check From Microsoft.
That Retirement Payday is Bigger than Most Powerball Jackpots Quick Read – Ballmer’s ~4% MSFT stake generated a $303 million single quarterly dividend check, more than double the all-time Mega Millions record jackpot. – Microsoft’s Azure grew 40% and its AI business surpassed a $37 billion annual revenue run rate, up 123% year over year, underwriting future dividend hikes. – Ballmer never sold a share after leaving the CEO role in 2014, proving that compounding equity often outlasts any operating role in building wealth. – Today is dividend day at Microsoft, and one shareholder is collecting a check that dwarfs almost every Powerball jackpot in U.S. history
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) paid its quarterly dividend of $0.91 per share on June 11, 2026, declared March 10, 2026, with an ex-dividend and record date of May 21, 2026. For most investors, that works out to a modest top-up. For Steve Ballmer, who according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index still controls roughly 4% of Microsoft, it works out to a payday Bloomberg and Forbes both peg at approximately $303 million from this single quarterly distribution.
But this isn’t a one-time Mega Millions jackpot (odds one in 259 million). Ballmer gets another one next quarter. How the math got this absurd Microsoft has 7.43 billion shares outstanding and pays a dividend yield slightly under 1%.