Tron (TRX) founder and CEO Justin Sun has won an eBay charity auction to have lunch with renowned investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. The news was revealed in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on June 3.
Sun reportedly bid a record-breaking $4,567,888 to win the charity auction, which has been held by Warren Buffett for the past 20 years.
Bloomberg reports that the winner, who had previously been unnamed, will be able to bring seven friends along for lunch with Buffett at a steakhouse in New York.
All proceeds from the auction benefit the San Francisco-based non-profit GLIDE Foundation. As the press release notes, GLIDE focuses on fighting injustice and inequality on behalf of economically deprived and oppressed communities in need, including the homeless, those from ethnic minorities or of LGBTQ orientation.
Buffett’s wife is reported to have been a GLIDE volunteer before her passing in 2004, since which the investor has upheld his own commitment to the foundation, reportedly raising over $30 million to date in auction proceeds.
In a statement, Sun emphasized the importance of contributing to a foundation whose work provides holistic programs for the local community, noting that:
“BitTorrent and TRON’s US headquarters are in San Francisco, and bidding on this charity auction was a key priority for our team. I’m proud to have my bid donated to GLIDE, a foundation that provides critical support for our local homeless community.”
According to the press release, the auction was hosted in cooperation with the “eBay for Charity” initiative, which enables members of eBay’s online community to support their chosen charities both donate platform-derived proceeds and additional contributions to various causes. The initiative has reportedly raised almost $912 million for nonprofits via the e-commerce community to date.
In her own statement, Karen Hanrahan, CEO and president of GLIDE, underscored that 100% of Sun’s contribution would be used “to help people overcome barriers such as homelessness, addiction, hunger and social isolation and reach their full potential.”
As reported, Sun also recently offered to personally deposit 7,000 BTC to compensate the loss incurred by the major hack of top crypto exchange Binance last month. The offer — alongside other similar offers from industry members such as Coinbase and QKC — was gratefully acknowledged but declined by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.
For some in the crypto community, Sun’s charity lunch with Warren Buffett will recall the investor’s much-publicized negative view of decentralized cryptocurrencies. While Buffett is well-known for this scathing stance — memorably characterizing bitcoin as "probably rat poison squared.” He has, however, recently made more positive comments in regard to blockchain.