Last updated 5/20/2026

Bill GatesNet Worth Estimate

Estimated Range$100.0B - $106.0B$100,000,000,000 - $106,000,000,000

Bill Gates is estimated to be worth about $100 billion to $106 billion as of May 20, 2026. The base case centers near Bloomberg’s current $103 billion estimate and is supported by large public stakes tied to Microsoft and Cascade Investment.

Image: Bogdan Hoyaux / European UnionCreative Commons Attribution 4.0

Range Model

Scenario Spread

Conservative

$92.0B - $100.0B

Base

$100.0B - $106.0B

Aggressive

$106.0B - $115.0B

Uncertainty Drivers

Cascade Investment is closely held and does not publish a full balance sheet.
Gates’s exact current personal Microsoft share count is not disclosed in recent Microsoft proxy statements.
Some disclosed public-equity stakes, especially Deere, rely on older filings and may have changed.
Taxes, debt, liquidity discounts, and charitable-transfer timing are not fully public.
Foundation trust assets are visible but not personal assets, creating high risk of double counting in casual estimates.

Estimate

Current Assessment

Gates’s wealth is no longer just a Microsoft story. Bloomberg says he still has about 1% of Microsoft, but much of the fortune is managed through Cascade Investment. Public filings show Cascade-linked stakes worth roughly $23.6 billion in Republic Services and $1.26 billion in AutoNation at current prices. A 2022 filing also showed a large Deere stake, worth about $11.0 billion at current prices if still held. Foundation assets are excluded because they belong to the charitable trust, not to Gates personally.

Key caveats

Cascade is private, so its full asset base and liabilities are not public.
The exact Microsoft stake is an estimate, not a current disclosed share count.
The Deere share count is older and may have changed.
Future charitable giving plans are not treated as current personal wealth or current debt.

Evidence gaps

Complete Cascade Investment balance sheet
Current personal Microsoft share count
Personal debt and tax liabilities
Updated filings for all Cascade public holdings

Confidence

Medium confidence

76/100

The draft is publishable with a Medium public confidence label. Identity is strongly supported, the major public-equity signals are grounded in SEC filings and market data snapshots, and the copy correctly excludes foundation assets and future giving from personal net worth. The main limitation is that the $100B–$106B range is tightly calibrated to Bloomberg’s $103B external estimate because Cascade Investment’s full balance sheet, Gates’s exact current Microsoft share count, private assets, taxes, debt, and other liabilities are not publicly evidenced in the supplied artifacts.

Medium is appropriate: the draft is generally defensible and transparent about its reliance on Bloomberg and its main uncertainty drivers. The supplied artifacts support a responsible Bloomberg-calibrated public range, but not a high-confidence independent asset-by-asset valuation because material private Cascade assets and liabilities remain unobserved and some large components are approximate or stale.

Key Evidence Gaps

Complete current Cascade Investment balance sheet.
Current exact personal Microsoft share count.
Current exact Cascade holdings across all public and private assets.
Personal debt, taxes payable, and other liabilities.
Current valuations for private assets, real estate, art, aircraft, and other non-public assets.

Public Caveats

Public confidence: Medium.
The estimate is calibrated primarily to Bloomberg’s current $103B net-worth figure and cross-checked against disclosed public holdings; it is not a complete independent valuation of all assets and liabilities.
Cascade Investment is private, so its full asset base, cash, private investments, taxes, debt, and other liabilities are not fully public.
The Microsoft stake is approximate because the supplied artifacts do not include a current personal share-count disclosure.

Evidence

Reviewed Signals

Signal	Value	Confidence
Divorce and charity-work transfer adjustments Bloomberg says it removed post-divorce transfers and a January 2026 additional $12.5B charity-work commitment from its analysis.	$12,500,000,000	78/100
Future philanthropic spend-down Gates’s stated plan to give away virtually all wealth through the foundation by 2045 affects future net worth but is not a present asset or liability line item.	$200,000,000,000	88/100
Gates Foundation Trust assets excluded Q1 2026 13F reportable securities of the charitable trust should not be counted as Gates’s personal wealth.	$31,665,506,000	90/100
AutoNation stake via Cascade SEC-disclosed Cascade/Gates beneficial ownership in AutoNation valued using current market quote.	$1,261,314,913	84/100
Approximate Microsoft stake Bloomberg estimates Gates has about 1% of Microsoft; current market cap implies about $31.1B.	$31,076,919,000	60/100
Republic Services stake via Cascade SEC-disclosed Cascade/Gates beneficial ownership in Republic Services valued using current market quote.	$23,607,324,375	85/100
Bloomberg current net-worth estimate Bloomberg’s third-party current estimate of Gates’s total personal net worth.	$103,000,000,000	88/100
Cascade diversified asset base Bloomberg states that most of Gates’s fortune is derived from Cascade Investment and that Cascade includes public and private assets.	n/a	68/100
Deere stake via Cascade, stale-share-count proxy 2022 SEC-disclosed Cascade Deere share count valued at current market price as a scale check.	$11,034,139,949	55/100

Citations

Sources

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Correction

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