Buffet’s final charity lunch draws $19M bid

An anonymous bidder has shelled out a record $19 million for a private lunch with billionaire Warren Buffet at a steakhouse in New York City.

The meal with the Berkshire Hathaway CEO was offered on an ebay auction to benefit the San-francisco-based charity GLIDE, which helps homeless people and those in poverty. The winner can bring up to seven guests.

Buffett has raised $53 million for GLIDE since the auction began in 2000. The charity earned the philanthropist billionaire’s support when his first wife, Susie, introduced him to it after she started volunteering there. She died in 2004.

This year’s event will be the first private lunch offered with the 91-year-old billionaire since the previous record-setting bid of $4.5 million by cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun in 2019. The past two auctions were called off due to coronavirus concerns and Buffett has said this will be the last.

“It’s been nothing but good,” Buffett said of the charity lunch in a news release. “I’ve met a lot of interesting people from all over the world. The one universal characteristic is that they feel the money is going to be put to very good uses.”

Like the winner this year, some other past winners have chosen to remain anonymous. One past winner, Ted Weschler, received a job offer from Buffett’s company after he spent nearly $5.3 million on two auctions in 2010 and 2011. Weschler now works as an investment manager for the Omaha, Nebraska, conglomerate, Berkshire.

Montana governor vacations during flood

As punishing floods tore through Yellowstone National Park and neighboring Montana communities, the state’s governor was nowhere to be seen.

In the immediate aftermath, the state issued a disaster declaration attributed to the Republican governor, but for some reason it carried the lieutenant governor’s signature.

It wasn’t until Wednesday — more than 48 hours after the flood hit the state — that Gov. Greg Gianforte’s office acknowledged he was out of the country, though it wouldn’t say exactly where he was, citing unspecified security concerns.

Gianforte finally returned on Thursday night from what his office said was a vacation with his wife in Italy. But he found himself facing a torrent of criticism for not hurrying home sooner and for not telling the public his whereabouts during the emergency.

In Gianforte’s defense, his office said he was briefed regularly about the flooding, which caused widespread damage.

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