The annual charity auction for a private lunch with billionaire investor Warren Buffett is underway.
The top bid to dine with the chairman of the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc was $200,100 at 12 p.m. EDT on Monday, but will likely surge by the time the auction on eBay ends on Friday night.
Winning bids have reached seven figures every year since 2008, with the record $3,456,789 offer submitted anonymously in 2012. Last year's winner paid $2,345,678.
Auction proceeds go to Glide, a charity in San Francisco's Tenderloin district that provides food, health care and other services to people who are homeless, poor or struggling with substance abuse. Buffett has raised about $20.2 million in 16 auctions for Glide.
"Mr. Buffett has been just one of the most important people in our work," Rev. Cecil Williams, 86, Glide's co-founder and a pastor at Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, told Reuters. "If people didn't respond to places like Glide, we would be in serious trouble in urban America."
Buffett, 85, is the world's third richest person, worth $66.8 billion, Forbes magazine said on Monday. He is donating virtually all of his wealth to charity.
The auction was created by Buffett's first wife, Susan, and continued after her 2004 death. It began on Sunday night, and will end at 10:30 p.m. EDT Friday.
The winner and up to seven friends can dine with Buffett at the Smith & Wollensky steak house in Manhattan.
Past winners have included David Einhorn, the Greenlight Capital hedge fund manager, and Ted Weschler, now a portfolio manager at Berkshire.
Bids for the private lunch have stayed high even as Buffett's visibility has grown over the years, including the first-ever webcast of Berkshire's annual meeting in April.