Originally founded as an online bookstore in 1994, Amazon has made Jeff Bezos the richest person on the planet, with a net worth of $114 billion (£86.2bn) at the time of writing. It's no surprise that the man behind the company is its largest shareholder, even after his costly divorce in which he surrendered 19.7 million shares, worth $35.6 billion (£27.2bn), to ex-wife MacKenzie in April 2019. However, in the summer of last year he also sold around $2.8 billion (£2.1bn) worth of shares, although the reasons behind this are unknown.
Another of Amazon's largest shareholders is Andrew Jassy, the CEO of Amazon Web Services. Following his appointment to the role in April 2016, he racked up a total of 91,231 shares of the company. In 2016 alone he earned compensation of $35.61 million (£27.2m), most of which was in stocks. In fact, this far exceeded founder Jeff Bezos' salary of $1.7 million (£1.2m) in the same year.
While Warren Buffett is known for being one of the most successful investors in history, he has famously avoided technology-related stocks, saying he didn't understand the market well enough. However, in May 2019 it was revealed that his investment firm Berkshire Hathaway had bought Amazon shares totalling 537,300, worth $947 million (£723m). Buffett has since played down the investment though, stating it was "one of the fellows in the office that manage money" who had made the purchase.
While Facebook's largest shareholders are its co-founders Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin and Dustin Moskovitz, WhatsApp founder Jan Koum owns an enviable 5.57 million shares in the company (as of 2018). After the messaging app was bought by Facebook for $19 billion (£14.4bn) in 2014, Koum gained a seat on Facebook's board of directors. However, he left the company in May 2018 and also stepped down as WhatsApp CEO, allegedly due to concerns over customer privacy and the introduction of ads.
Having held the position of Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Facebook since 2008, Sheryl Sandberg has amassed a total of 2.12 million shares of the company's shares, making her a billionaire. Sandberg was working at Google when she met Mark Zuckerberg at a Christmas party, and he subsequently offered her the job of COO, despite not having been looking for someone to take on the role. Later, Sandberg was appointed to Facebook's board of directors in 2012, making her the first woman to serve on the company's board.
Perhaps one of the more surprising Facebook shareholders is U2 frontman Bono. The musician purchased a 2.3% stake in the company, at a cost of $56 million, back in 2009 when it first went public. It was a savvy move: by 2016 the investment had paid out more than $1.4 billion (£1bn). However, with the purchase having been made through his investment group Elevation Partners, the earnings are shared with six other investors, with Bono's personal cut thought to be around $43 million (£32.8m).
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The founder of SoftBank Group is the second richest person in Japan, and one of the richest people in the world, with a net worth of $20.9 billion (£15.8bn) according to Forbes. Through his SoftBank Vision Fund, Masatoshi Son owns 13% of Uber, with a total of almost 217 million shares. Despite his enormous wealth, Son recently said he's embarrassed of his investment record: Uber suffered an unexpectedly low valuation when it went public, and SoftBank put $18.5 billion (£14.1bn) into WeWork, a company now valued at $8 billion (£6bn).
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While Uber's other top shareholders include co-founders Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp, a more unexpected owner is Beyoncé. After being offered $6 million (£4.5m) to perform at an Uber event in 2015, the singer asked to be paid in restricted stock units (RSUs) instead. In May 2019, it was estimated that Queen Bey could have made as much as $300 million (£226.9m) from the deal, a lot more than her usual $6 million (£4.5m) fee. It's not the first savvy business deal she's made; in 2018 she performed at Coachella for half of the $8 million (£6.1m) fee offered, in exchange for the rights to the show. She then sold it to Netflix for $60 million (£46m).
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Ashton Kutcher has been investing in tech start-ups for over a decade. The actor and his business partners Guy Oseary and Ron Burkle put around $500,000 (£378k) into Uber through their firm A-Grade Investments. That investment is now worth upwards of $60 million (£45.9m). The three friends have turned their initial $30 million (£22m) fund into $250 million (£191m) through a series of shrewd investments, including Airbnb, Spotify, SoundCloud and Shazam.
With a valuation of around $1.3 trillion (£983bn) at the time of writing, there's no doubt that Apple is one of the biggest companies on the planet. It's largest shareholder is Arthur Levinson, chairman of the board at Apple. However, his 1.16 million Apple shares account for just 20% of his estimated $1 billion (£764m) fortune. The rest is thanks to his long-held position at Genentech Inc. and a shrewd early investment in Google.
Tim Cook is the company's second largest shareholder, with shares totalling 854,849. Cook has been CEO of Apple since 2011, taking over from founder Steve Jobs. The current CEO saw his net worth increase by around $114 million (£93m) in summer 2019 after he received 280,000 Apple shares for achieving performance goals, and another 280,000 for staying with the company. However, Cook didn't keep them all for himself, donating 23,700 shares to charity, the equivalent of $4.87 million (£3.7m) at the time. Other notable Apple shareholders include COO Jeff Williams and Senior Vice President of Legal and Global Security Bruce Sewell.
Jared Leto is another Airbnb shareholder, although not at quite the same level as the company's founders. The actor is a keen investor, having put money into over 50 technology companies, most in their early stages. As well as Airbnb, Leto has also invested in other successful companies such as Spotify, Uber and Nest. He spoke of his love of investing at WSJ Magazine’s inaugural D.Luxe conference, saying "I’ve always been entrepreneurial, ever since I sold dope as a kid."
Reed Hastings co-founded Netflix in 1997, alongside Marc Randolph. After departing Netflix in 2002, it's thought that Randolph sold most of his shares, while Hastings still owns just under 2.5% of the company, through around 10.7 million shares. However, it's thought that the largest shareholders are institutional investors. The Vanguard Group owns 7% of Netflix, and Capital Research Global Investors owns 5.88%. Today, Hastings has a net worth of around $3.8 billion (£2.9bn) at the time of writing.
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Google co-founder Larry Page is parent company Alphabet's largest shareholder. As of 2018 he owned 20 million Class C shares and 20.0 million Class B shares. Page stepped down as Alphabet CEO in December 2019, having amassed a personal fortune of $60.7 billion (£45.9bn), according to Forbes. He has also founded start-ups Opener and Kitty Hawk, which both have a focus on designing and building flying cars.
Jeff Bezos invested around $1 million in an early-stage Google in 1998. The Amazon founder reportedly managed to convince the search engine's founders to allow him to invest, despite its funding round having closed. Bezos has been notoriously quiet about what he did with his shares after Google went public in 2004. His shares would be worth billions by now, meaning he would be a billionaire even if he had never started Amazon.
Robert 'Bob' Iger is the chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Since he took over in 2006, the company's stock price has increased from $24 to $134. And Iger has certainly had the motivation to keep the company successful as he is the largest Disney shareholder, with over one million shares. In 2018 his total compensation was $65.6 million (£50.1m). He is due to step down from his role at Disney in 2021.
In March 2019 the huge merger between the Walt Disney Company and 21st Century Fox was finalised when Disney paid $71.3 billion (£53.9bn) for a range of 21st Century Fox's assets. As part of the deal, Fox's founder Rupert Murdoch was reportedly given the option to swap his 21st Century Fox shares for Disney shares. According to Forbes, assuming he took the offer, the media mogul would now own $10.5 billion (£8bn) worth of the company.
Despite not being one of Microsoft's founders, former CEO Steve Ballmer is the company's largest shareholder. Ballmer was first given shares back when he was hired as a business manager in 1980, making him the 30th Microsoft employee. He now owns a reported 300 million Microsoft shares, and has a net worth of $57.2 billion (£43.3bn). Ballmer left the company in 2014, replaced by current CEO Satya Nadella.
With a personal fortune of $108.3 billion (£81.9bn), Bill Gates is the world's second wealthiest person. The Microsoft co-founder still owns around 330 million shares in the company he started, despite having sold or donated much of his stake. This includes selling $35.8 billion (£27.3bn) worth of shares to fund the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Microsoft's other top shareholders include former board member Mason Morfit, current CEO Satya Nadella and president and chief legal officer Bradford Smith.
President Donald Trump owned Microsoft shares worth between $300,000 and $600,000 according to Forbes. A financial disclosure in 2016 revealed that he also had investments in Apple, Nike, Coca Cola, and controversial biotech company Monsanto. While Trump's spokesman said in December 2016 that he had sold all shares in companies in June that year, the Guardian noted that no proof of this was provided.
Spotify was founded in 2006 and has since become a global business worth nearly $30 billion (£23bn). Co-founder and chief executive Daniel Ek is the largest shareholder, owning around 9% of the company through 47 million shares (as of 2018). The Swedish entrepreneur is no stranger to success, having founded his first company aged just 14. He also applied for a job at Google at 16 years old, and after being turned down worked with Swedish ad network Tradedoubler to build a program that helped with their analytics, something the company later paid him $1 million for the rights to.
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Co-founder Martin Lorentzon is the second largest Spotify shareholder, with around 24 million shares. Lorentzon stepped down from his role of Chairman in 2016, but remains a member of the company's board. In August 2018 it was reported that Lorentzon had sold shares worth $40 million (£30m), but his remaining shares are still worth as much as $4 billion (£3bn). Spotify's other largest shareholders include China's Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) and Sony Music Entertainment, which also gets royalties from giving the streaming service access to its music catalogue.
With a net worth of over $80 million (£61m), it's not surprising Justin Bieber has made some savvy investments. The singer's manager, Scooter Braun, and fellow musician Diddy have also reportedly put money into the music company. Bieber also holds two records on the streaming service, as the first musician to have five singles streamed a billion times each, and then the first artist to have half a dozen songs streamed one billion times.
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