Microsoft and its CEO Steve Ballmer vehemently oppose a state income tax, earmarked for schools and health care, on the richest 1.2 percent. Which is odd because Microsoft's founder, worth three times as much as Ballmer, is a big fan.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates Jr., net worth $53 billion, will be voting in support the incoming tax, which his father Bill Gates Sr. helped create and donated $600,000 to. Ballmer, worth $14.5 billion, contributed $425,000 to oppose the measure and got Microsoft the company to donate another $75,000. There's a certain logic in the chairman and CEO of Microsoft opposing one another like this: Gates has already earned the world's second largest fortune and begun big chunks of it away; Ballmer is still building his fortune, and drawing down an annual salary to tax. [Bloomberg via Forbes]

[Photo of Ballmer (left) and Gates (right) via AP]