Bill Gates’ $10.95 Million Daily Income: How the Microsoft Legend Spends It
Allen & Co Conference 2012
Despite a current net worth of approximately $128 billion and an intention to work his way off the list of the world’s richest people through his philanthropic work, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has always been famously frugal. Still, frugal is an extremely relative term when you make nearly $11 million a day, or more than $300,000 per hour. So, here are five big ticket items Gate’s spent (a relatively small) portion of his billions on.
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Xanadu 2.0
- Approximate Worth: $130 million
Gates’s sprawling lakefront Washington State estate, named after Charles Foster Kane’s home in the movie Citizen Kane, weighs in at 66,000 square feet. Gates reportedly bought the land for $2 million in 1988 and spent seven years and $63 million building the home. What do you get for that? How about six kitchens, a 25,000-square-foot gym, a trampoline room, a steam room, a sauna and an artificial stream with sand imported from the Caribbean. For starters.
Bombardier BD-700 Global Express Luxury Jet
- Approximate Cost: $40 million
Although Gates is committed to shrinking his carbon footprint, the billionaire owns more than one private jet, including this ultra-long distance model. Fitted out with two Rolls-Royce BR710A2-20 turbofan engines, the jet can seat 19 and has a maximum range of 6,000 nautical miles.
Codex Leicester
- Cost: $30.8 million
Gates is an enthusiastic reader and lover of books, so perhaps it’s no wonder that in 1994, he paid the most anyone had ever paid for a book, the Codex Leicester. It was not exactly pulp fiction; the tome was Leonardo da Vinci’s science notebook, filled with drawings, theories, and observations. It contains da Vinci’s thoughts on the movement of water, the luminosity of the moon and why sea creature fossils are often found on mountains.
Winslow Homer’s Lost on the Grand Banks
- Approximate Cost: $30 million
Gates was an art aficionado and a bibliophile, and he spent approximately 100 hours of his earnings on this piece for his extensive collection. The famous painting depicts two fishermen in stormy seas off Maine and completes a trio of works, including The Fog Warning and The Herring Net, depicting the hard lives of seamen. Something Gates can apparently identify with?
Rancho Paseana
- Cost: $18 million
Gates bought this sprawling 228-acre horse ranch in 2014 from fitness expert Jenny Craig. Located 26 miles north of San Diego, California, the sprawling equestrian center features a ¾-mile horse race track and five barns. Forbes reported that Craig had many developers interested in buying the property. Still, she wanted it to go to a person who would preserve it as a home for horses, rather than more houses for humans. Enter Gates.
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