Who is Steve Ballmer? Life, net worth and everything to know about Los Angeles Clippers' owner amid Aspiration and Kawhi Leonard controversy

The dynamic former CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer, oversaw the business from 2000 to 2014. The Los Angeles Clippers of the NBA are owned by the former CEO of Microsoft. Following the previous owner's racist comments, he paid $2 billion to acquire the franchise in 2014. After that, he gave the team a big financial boost and added players like James Harden and Kawhi Leonard to its lineup.

In addition, he constructed Intuit Dome, a brand-new arena, while continuing to be very involved and passionate about the team's accomplishments. He has, however, recently encountered legal problems, such as a lawsuit that claims he covertly paid Leonard and got around the salary cap by using a firm called Aspiration.

Steve Ballmer explains why the Clippers needed their own home to finally build a true identity

After leaving Stanford's MBA program, he became employee No. 30 at Microsoft in 1980. During their time as Harvard undergraduates, he first got to know Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates. Following the initial dot-com disaster, Ballmer led Microsoft through attempts to overtake Google in search capabilities and Apple in mobile phones.

He paid $2 billion to acquire the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers in 2014, the year he resigned from Microsoft; Forbes currently values the team at $5.5 billion. He built a stadium for an additional $2 billion.

Ballmer claims to be the largest individual stakeholder of Microsoft, having retained the majority of his 4% stake in the firm after he retired. Since 2014, Steve has increased his charitable giving; the Ballmers have donated almost $5.7 billion so far.

When Steve Ballmer purchased the team for $2 billion in 2014, he was initially happy to play at Staples Centre, which houses the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL.




However, Ballmer claimed that after a year, he came to the conclusion that the Clippers had to construct their own arena in order to develop their own "identity." In a comprehensive interview with ESPN ahead of Friday's groundbreaking for the Clippers' new arena in Inglewood:

"We needed to say, 'We're our own guys. We don't play in the same place as the other guys. We're going to have our own identity’.”

Ballmer believes the new arena, which will be called the Intuit Dome and open for the 2024–2025 season, is essential to the Clippers' success on and off the court, even though it will cost him more than $2 billion—basically the same amount he paid for the franchise just seven years ago.

Ballmer stated:

"I've never been in a place where you had two teams in a town… I grew up in Detroit. Everybody's a Pistons fan. And I think for enough years the Clippers were bad enough, everybody could just ignore the Clippers…”

Steve Ballmer denies serious lawsuit allegations linked to Kawhi Leonard and salary-cap claims

However, Ballmer recently made headlines after 11 Aspiration investors sued him on Monday, claiming that he used the business "to secretly funnel millions of dollars to" Leonard, according to writer Pablo Torre.

The lawsuit claims that Ballmer used Aspiration, now known as "Catona," to "induce Leonard to re-sign with the Clippers by covertly paying him more than allowed by the NBA's salary cap rules." According to the lawsuit, Ballmer was "complicit in and aided and abetted" in the fraud.

In order to keep the business "afloat" and purchase co-founder Joe Sanberg's "support, cooperation, and silence about the secret deal with Leonard," the plaintiffs further claimed that Ballmer provided additional funds to the business.

He has, however, strongly refuted claims that the organization attempted to get around the NBA pay ceiling when it signed Kawhi Leonard in 2019. Both the team and Ballmer have expressed the same opinion since journalist Pablo Torre revealed proof of that potential scandal, alleging that Aspiration, the company at the center of it, "defrauded" Ballmer.

Also read: "This too shall pass"- Steve Ballmer responds to Kawhi Leonard investigation, insists Los Angeles Clippers did nothing wrong