Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO

The US Govt was just finishing it's trial on Microsoft & was watching them closely.

Tech bubble just burst.

On day 1 of the transition after Steve, the stock jumped like crazy & continued that momentum. The stock was, as Dan mentions, at an unfairly low p/e ratio too.

Idk if Steve was great but seems he was given the role of transition CEO. Plus did Bill ever really leave?

It'll be interesting to see how Satya finishes his career & the first few years after. Microsoft was making really good software the first few years after Satya took over & a lot of people were wanting to work there. Since Covid though, their software quality & updates have crashed imo.

Many people would interpret that as "investors had no faith in Steve Ballmer and were delighted to see his back." Do you have a different interpretation?

Also, you seem to be implying that the trial was some external event, and not directly the fault of Bill and Steve. That is not how most people felt at the time.

In many ways, it was. The political stars aligned "just so", in a way we've not really seen before or since. Many, many other companies got away with much more egregious behaviour (hello, Apple).