How are the wealth of technology billionaires divided?

Bill Gates divorce his wife is a paper-consuming story of the press in the past few days. But the billionaire founder of Microsoft does not let the story of his family last long when he quickly divides the property with his ex-wife, Melinda.

This detail was discovered by the Western media through a stock worth $ 1.8 billion that Cascade investment fund, Bill Gates’ wealth management company, transferred to Melinda after the divorce announcement.

But not only Bill Gates, many of the technology billionaires at the time or not divorced have a clear division of wealth, avoiding conflicts affecting the empire they once ran.

Steve Jobs (Apple)

Billionaire founder of Apple, Steve Jobs passed away from cancer in 2011. At that time, Steve Jobs’s fortune including shares in Apple and Walt Disney was worth about $ 10.2 billion.

The entire property is transferred to his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs without federal taxation, inheritance tax or property tax which can be up to 66%. This stems from the fact that the United States does not tax the transfer of property to a spouse, as long as the person is a US citizen.

However, this is only tax deferred. If the heir to the property of a spouse, in this case Laurene Powell Jobs, leaves the property to someone else (assuming she hasn’t spent all of her money), the next heir will have to pay taxes.

Steve Jobs left nearly all of his fortune behind his wife Laurene Powell Jobs.

Currently, the fortune of Steve Jobs in the hands of his wife Laurene Powell Jobs reached $ 19 billion. This means that the next heir will at least pay the capital gain tax between the current $ 19 billion and the past $ 10.2 billion, subject to state tax laws and federal then.

Currently, President Biden is strongly promoting the proposal to increase tax to the richest 0.3% group in America, in which the so-called inheritance tax exemption (tax free) is eliminated. Therefore, it is unlikely that Steve Jobs’s lifetime wealth will be unharmed unless Laurene Powell Jobs later performs a series of tax evasion tricks.

As for children, the rich often make available a trust to transfer assets while still alive and it does not affect anything when they die. In fact, Steve Jobs also left nothing for three legal children with Laurene Powell Jobs.

But Steve Jobs also had an illegitimate Lisa Brennan-Jobs with his school love Chrisann Brennan. However, at the time of Steve Jobs’s death, only Lisa Brennan-Jobs received a multi-million dollar inheritance. The specific amount and tax amount that Lisa Brennan-Job has to pay are not disclosed because it is too small compared to Steve Jobs’s massive fortune.

Larry Ellison (Oracle)

Oracle founder Larry Ellison is no stranger to estate divorce. The 77-year-old billionaire has spent four wives and only two children with his third wife. He is currently dating a 47-year-old model, Nikita Kahn.

There is no information about the division of Larry Ellison’s divorce property, but it is interesting to note that the second wife refused to split her husband’s company in 1978 in exchange for $ 500.

That company today is Oracle, where Larry Ellison still holds a 35% stake and brought in a fortune of $ 93 billion for the billionaire.

From left to right: Nikita Kahn, Larry Ellison’s current girlfriend, Larry Ellison, his oldest daughter, his ex-wife.

With children, in contrast to many other billionaires like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, Larry Ellison has made a trust to leave millions of startup shares to children as gifts to minimize tax payable.

The exact number of shares has not been determined because Larry Ellison holds shares in various hedge funds and companies, including Elon Musk’s electric car company Tesla.

The remaining 95% of assets are committed to charity by Larry Ellison based on the agreement The Giving Pledge, an initiative of the couple Bill Gates and billionaire Warren Buffett in 2010.

Lee Kun-hee (Samsung)

Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee died in 2020, but the tycoon’s inheritance story is still very hot. Although the late chairman has divided the ownership of the family’s subsidiaries by three children (a daughter commits suicide), the $ 20.7 billion fortune is still a topic of public opinion.

Under Korean law, the heiress of chairman Lee Kun-hee must pay inheritance tax of more than $ 10.8 billion. This forces the Lee family to pay the installment tax in six phases over the next 5 years.

President Lee Kun-hee (right) next to Crown Prince Lee Jae-yong.

Analysts are still waiting for legal documents to be released to find out changes in the share structure of Prince Lee Jae-yong’s family, the largest shareholder of Samsung C&T.

Because the Samsung empire consists of many subsidiaries with complicated overlapping share structure. However, chairman Lee Kun-hee has long ago divided power with Prince Lee Jae-yong who runs Samsung Electronics, chief female Lee Boo-jin running Hotel Shilla Hotel, second female Lee Seo- Hyun runs the family’s charity fund.