Gates unloads $28.5 million in Microsoft stock

Microsoft chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates has filed with security regulators to sell approximately $28.5 million worth of stock in his company. But lest investors fear that Gates is abandoning the good ship Microsoft, the 300,000 shares he wishes to dump represent only a small portion of his company holdings. With 780 million shares, representing over 15% of the total available, Gates is the largest shareholder in the company and his portion is worth approximately $75 billion.

"This is just part of a regular program where he periodically sells a small fraction of his holdings as part of his prudent portfolio diversification," said Microsoft spokesperson Caroline Boren.

Gates has made other sales of company stock in the recent past: In February, he dropped 1.125 million shares for about $107 million, while a foundation run by Gates and his wife Melinda sold $2 billion in Microsoft stock last month.

Gates co-founder Paul Allen originally received their stockpiles of common stock from Microsoft in 1981 when the company went public