An anonymous bidder agreed to pay $9,000,100 to share a private lunch this June in Omaha with Warren Buffett, Stephen Curry and Ayesha Curry, the winning result of a one-week eBay charity auction that closed Thursday and will channel roughly $27 million to two anti-poverty nonprofits once Mr. Buffett layers in a matching personal contribution to each beneficiary.
The auction, which Buffett revived this year for the first time since 2022 in partnership with the Currys, drew an undisclosed pool of bidders before settling just above the $9 million mark.
According to data posted to eBay, the proceeds will be split equally between the Glide Foundation, the San Francisco-based homelessness and addiction-services nonprofit Buffett has supported for more than two decades, and Eat. Learn. Play., the childhood nutrition, literacy and athletics nonprofit founded by Stephen and Ayesha Curry.
Buffett said he would personally match the winning bid for each charity, lifting the total expected donation to roughly $27 million.
The winning bidder, who was not identified, will be permitted to bring up to seven guests to the June 24 lunch in Omaha, Nebraska, where Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate is headquartered.
“We’re overwhelmed with gratitude for this opportunity, which reflects a shared belief that when different generations and institutions come together with purpose, we can create deeper and more lasting impact for the people who need it most,” Stephen Curry and Ayesha Curry said in a joint statement, as reported by The Associated Press.
The auction marks the first Buffett charity meal event in four years.
Between 2000 and 2022, Buffett raised roughly $53.2 million for Glide through 21 annual auctions, an event that became one of the most distinctive features of the Berkshire Hathaway chairman’s public profile.
He paused the tradition after the 2022 sale, which produced a record $19 million winning bid that remains the largest in eBay charity auction history.
Buffett began supporting Glide at the encouragement of his first wife, Susan Buffett, who volunteered at the nonprofit before her death in 2004.
The 2026 auction differs from the earlier series in one important respect: the addition of Stephen and Ayesha Curry alongside Buffett, expanding the beneficiary list and pulling in a broader donor demographic.
Stephen Curry, a guard for the Golden State Warriors, is a four-time National Basketball Association champion and two-time league Most Valuable Player.
Ayesha Curry is an entrepreneur, restaurateur and cookbook author who has built a public profile as an advocate against childhood hunger.
The couple founded Eat. Learn. Play. to address what they describe as the linked challenges of nutritious meals, childhood literacy and physical activity in lower-income communities, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Glide, which is based in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, has used Buffett’s past auction proceeds to underwrite meals, addiction-recovery programs, housing assistance and health services.
Buffett, who turned 95 last year, has long argued that businesses and nonprofits can produce more durable social outcomes when they coordinate directly rather than rely solely on government programs — a thesis that has informed his giving through both the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and the Gates Foundation.
The auction lands at a transitional moment for Berkshire Hathaway.
Buffett stepped down as chief executive in January 2026 after 60 years in the role, handing the operating reins to longtime vice chairman Greg Abel while remaining as Berkshire’s chairman.
The succession, formally laid out at the company’s annual meeting in Omaha on May 2, has refocused investor attention on capital allocation, succession-era buybacks and Berkshire’s cash position, which sat at roughly $350 billion as of the most recent disclosure.
Berkshire shares have underperformed the S&P 500 by a wide margin since Buffett signaled the transition last spring, a gap that has drawn fresh sell-side commentary about the post-Buffett era at one of the country’s most-watched conglomerates.
For the Currys, the auction provides a rare cross-generational platform alongside one of the most influential investors in American history.
Eat. Learn. Play., which has expanded its reach since launching in 2019, has used corporate partnerships with Workday, Under Armour, Chase, Target and others to fund meal distribution and literacy programs in Oakland and neighboring communities.
The roughly $13.5 million that the foundation stands to receive once Buffett’s match is applied represents one of the single largest contributions in the organization’s six-year history.
The Omaha lunch itself, scheduled for June 24, will be a private affair, with the winner and up to seven guests joining the Buffett-Curry trio.
Berkshire Hathaway, Glide and Eat. Learn. Play. had not publicly identified the winning bidder as of Friday morning.
Whoever is eventually unmasked will be sitting down with a 95-year-old American capitalist and a 38-year-old basketball icon — both, in their respective fields, among the most influential names of the past two decades — for what is likely to remain the highest-priced private meal of 2026.
JBizNews Desk
© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.
