Warren Buffett trolled Bill Gates by telling him to spend $370 million on an engagement ring

Theron Mohamed

December 22, 2021 1:24 PM

Warren Buffett jokingly urged Bill Gates to spend close to $400 million on an engagement ring, according to "The Deals of Warren Buffett Volume 2: The Making of a Billionaire."
Berkshire Hathaway's boss took the Microsoft founder and his future wife, Melinda, ring shopping at Borsheims, one of his businesses, in 1993.
Buffett told Gates that he spent 6% of his net wealth on an engagement ring in 1951, and the technology tycoon should do the same.
Gates was worth around $6.2 billion in 1993, and declined to shell out $370 million more than $660 million in today's dollars.

Warren Buffett trolled Bill Gates by urging him to spend close to $400 million on an engagement ring, according to "The Deals of Warren Buffett Volume 2: The Making of a Billionaire."

The Berkshire Hathaway CEO made the pitch to the Microsoft founder when he and his future wife, Melinda, visited Omaha to go ring shopping in 1993. Buffett met them at the airport and escorted them to Borsheims, a jewelry business he bought four years earlier.

The famed investor told Gates the richest man in the world and a Berkshire board member at the time, as well as a close friend that he spent 6% of his net wealth on an engagement ring in 1951, and Gates should do the same.

Gates was worth around $6.2 billion in 1993, according to Forbes. Despite Buffett's coaxing, he declined to shell out $370 million nearly $660 million in today's dollars.

"We didn't have quite as big a day that Sunday as I had hoped," Buffett joked afterward.

Skimping on the ring didn't end in disaster. Bill and Melinda married in Hawaii in 1994, and stayed together for 27 years. They divorced in August 2021.

Theron Mohamed