Last year’s bidding for lunch with legendary investor Warren Buffett topped $620,000, so who knows how much it will cost this year.
The online bidding begins at $25,000 Sunday night in a charity auction that benefits the Glide Foundation, which provides social services to the poor and homeless in San Francisco. The bids will likely escalate significantly before the auction closes Friday at 9 p.m. CDT.
The winning bidder will be able to take six friends to lunch with Buffett, who is chairman and chief executive of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The owners of the Smith & Wollensky restaurant in New York contributed $10,000 to Glide and will again host the lunch.
This year’s bidding begins one day short of a year after Buffett announced his plan to give away the bulk of his nearly $49 billion fortune over time. Most of Buffett’s shares of Berkshire stock will go to five charitable foundations, with the largest share going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
This will be the fifth year the Oracle of Omaha has auctioned a lunch on eBay and donated the proceeds to the Glide Foundation.
“We’re so grateful for Warren’s consistent support of our organization,” Glide’s founder, the Rev. Cecil Williams, said in a statement. “His generosity and spirit allows us to offer real help to real people in real time.”
Last year’s $620,100 Buffett lunch was the second-most expensive charity item ever sold on eBay. In 2005, the winning bid was $351,100.
The most expensive charity item ever sold on eBay was a Harley Davidson motorcycle autographed by celebrities that Jay Leno offered in 2005. Catherine England, a spokeswoman for the site, said that bike raised $800,100 for the American Red Cross’ tsunami relief effort.
Buffett began auctioning the lunches for the charity off-line in 2000. He offers one lunch a year.
