Former Microsoft chief executive and board chairman Bill Gates, now super philanthropist, has officially lost his place as Microsoft's top individual shareholder. Gates, who sold about 4.6 million shares of the company this week, is down to around 330 million in total. Former CEO Steve Ballmer and his 333 million shares has now taken the top spot for Microsoft shareholders.

As the Financial Times notes, this is the first such time since 1975 where Gates has not been the biggest shareholder in the company he originally co-founded. Ballmer, who was Microsoft's 30th employee and Gates's first business manager hire, eventually succeeded him as CEO of Microsoft in January 2000.

Ballmer announced his retirement in August 2013, and he stepped down when Microsoft selected Satya Nadella as its new CEO in February.

If Gates's wind-down continues at the rate it has been for years now  roughly 20 million shares per quarter  then he'll have no direct ownership in Microsoft by mid-2018. Although other investing firms own larger chunks of shares, Gate and Ballmer are currently the company's biggest individual shareholders at roughly 4 percent of the company's total outstanding shares each.

"It's not an event in and of itself, but it is symbolic in that it speaks to what has taken place at Microsoft over the last 10 years. There's been a passing of the guard," said Daniel Ives, analyst at FBR Capital Markets & Co., in an interview with Bloomberg.

Gates officially reclaimed his title as the world's richest person this past March when Gates overtook Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and his $72 billion net worth. The Microsoft co-founder jumped up from a net worth of $67 billion in 2013 to $76 billion in 2014 on Forbes' annual list.

That said, Gates has given more than $26 billion to various philanthropic causes via his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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