Bill Gates’ McDonald’s Gold Card Offers Free Food For Life, Few Non-Billionaires Have Received One This Decade

A McDonald’s Gold cardholder can access free meals for life. However, benefits can be customized to limit access to local locations, like Warren Buffett’s, or provide global access, like Bill Gates’ card, based on the person’s lifestyle and preferences.

Gates can visit any McDonald’s in the world and enjoy a free meal for life. In a 2007 CNBC interviewBuffett said that while his card was good in Omaha, Gates’ card worked everywhere.

“There are only a few. Bill Gates has one. His is valid worldwide, I suppose,” he said.

Doors recently revealed his fondness for cheeseburgers, describing them as his “favorite food”. With a net worth of more than $120 billion, he or his longtime billionaire friend Buffett could pay for any meal. So why give them free food? The underlying purpose of the Gold card is probably to show appreciation for these successful people.

In 2022, the fast food giant address hype around this card by offering a few contest winners the McGold card with lifetime access to free meals.

During the 2007 interview, Buffett showed what was in his portfolio. “Here we have my McDonald’s card, which allows me to eat free at any McDonald’s in Omaha for the rest of my life. That’s why the Buffett family is having a Christmas dinner at McDonald’s. That explains a lot of things,” he said.

Buffett’s frugal lifestyle despite his wealth while investing wisely over the decades shows that luxury can be enjoying a simple cheeseburger. He once traveled with Gates to Hong Kong and paid at McDonald’s with coupons because his Gold card doesn’t work from Omaha, illustrating his thrifty nature.

In a 2017 annual report letter published on Gates Notes, Bill recalled the funny moment: “Remember the laugh we had when we traveled to Hong Kong together and decided to have lunch at McDonald’s? You offered to pay, reached into your pocket and pulled out some let’s go.”

The HBO documentary “Becoming Warren Buffett,” filmed in 2017, offered a glimpse into Buffett’s daily life. He spent between $2.61 and $3.17 daily on breakfast, usually at a nearby McDonald’s drive-thru. The amount Buffett would spend on breakfast depended on how wealthy he felt that day.

Additionally, the Berkshire Hathaway CEO continues to live in his more than 6,000 square foot Omaha home, which he purchased for $31,500 in 1958.

At a shareholder from 2010 letter, Buffett had described the purchase of the house as the “third best investment” he had ever made. Although Buffett felt he would have made more money if he had rented and used the money from the house to buy stocks, he values ​​the 60 years of memories in that house much more.

Gates also kept his choices old-fashioned, especially when it came to his attire. A politician report published in 2014 indicated that Gates always wore a $10 wristwatch despite being the the richest man around the world that year. He also prefers simple attire, often the iconic V-neck sweater with a collared shirt, illustrating his frugal lifestyle.

One hallmark of Gates’ frugality is his philanthropic accomplishments through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Over the years, he has donated billions of dollars to noble and charitable causes around the world.

In a blog post in late 2022, Gates wrote that if wealth makes one’s life comfortable, money does not fulfill it. An individual can only flourish through family, friends and work that matters. “I’m grateful to have all three,” he wrote.

With no plans to retire anytime soon, Gates will continue to work on his decades-old projects, including funding research into diseases like Alzheimer’s through his foundation.

“I continue to move full steam ahead on the project I started more than two decades ago, which is to return the vast majority of my resources to society. Even though I don’t care where I stand on the list of richest people in the world, I know that if I manage to give, I will go down and eventually disappear from the list completely,” he noted.