If you’ve been looking for a chance to break bread with Warren Buffett, this might be your last chance to bend his ears.
The 91-year-old billionaire investor is raise money for charity by auctioning a lunch to yourself, reviving the tradition every year after a two-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic. And according to the event’s partner, the San Francisco-based nonprofit Glide, this charity lunch will be Buffett’s last.
Buffett’s Annual “Power of One” charity auction lunch started in 2000 to raise funds for Glide lightly, runs a church and provides meals and health care services to the poor and homeless. That first year, the auction raised $25,000 from an unnamed donor. In 2019, the most recent year of the event, the winning bid was 4.57 million dollarsfiled by crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun.
Lunch has now raised over $34 million for Glide, organization said in Monday.
The Smith & Wollensky steakhouse is pictured on Wednesday, May 9, 2007, in New York.
Bloomberg | Getty Images
Glide prices this year’s auction as the “big finale” of the event. Buffett and Glide did not publicly explain why the annual charity lunch ended, nor did they immediately respond to CNBC Make It’s request for comment.
In a statement Monday, Glide president and CEO Karen Hanrahan credited “Buffett’s friendship and generosity over the past 22 years” for “deepening Glide’s impact on systems that cause poverty and inequality.”
The original lunch auctions were conceived by Buffett’s first wife, Susie, who passed away in 2004. In 2017, Buffett told CNBC on Glide’s selection, noting that the organization’s former pastor, Cecil Williams, “helps those the world gave up on and he never gave up on anyone.”
“They really take the people who hit the bottom and help bring them back,” says Buffett. “And [Williams] been doing it for decades, and he’s a remarkable man and if we could help by donating some money to him, I’d love to do it. “
The lunches – shared by Buffett, the auction winner, and up to seven guests chosen by the winner – take place at a New York steakhouse called Smith & Wollensky, where Buffett’s Standard Order is “a medium-rare steak with hash browns and a cup of cherry,” according to the restaurant and past auction winners.
Sun, the 2019 winner, is the founder of cryptocurrency TRON and the CEO of file-sharing company Rainberry – and he spent his lunch convincing Buffett of the value of investing. into electronic money. The plan doesn’t seem to work: Billionaire told CNBC weeks after lunch he still doesn’t own any cryptocurrency and “never will”, a public stance that has not changed yet.
However, lunch with Buffett could give you a chance to convince the legendary investor of an idea or glean some of the investment insights he has gleaned from a career spanning decades. century helped him build his net worth 120 billion dollarsaccording to Bloomberg.
If that sounds appealing, you can Start bidding through the online marketplace eBay on June 12 at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time. The auction starts at $25,000 and the auction will end on June 17 at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time.
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