It wouldn't be the first time investors had flirted with the notion, either. Early this year, activist investor David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital publicly called current CEO Steve Ballmer a weight dragging down the company's share price, prompting the rumor that Gates might return. But Gates has been cool to the idea publicly, rebuffing it in 2010 and again this year in June, when he told the Daily Mail his work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation "is my job now." (Einhorn declined to comment for this story.)
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