Many of today’s celebrities are worth millions, with some reaching billionaire status. While some enjoy showing off their expensive tastes online, others use their earnings to give back. One of the most well-known billionaires and philanthropists is Bill Gates. As the co-founder of Microsoft and often noted as pioneering the personal computer revolution, Gates held the title of the richest person in the world for several of the last 20 years. However, in 2017 he was overtaken by Jeff Bezos and is now the second richest person in the world. When you are the second richest person, you can become out of touch with the expense of simple items, such as groceries.
Gates’ appearance on ‘The Ellen Show’
In 2018, Gates was a guest on The Ellen Show. Host Ellen DeGeneres always has antics up her sleeve for celebrity guests to partake in during their time on the show, so it wasn’t surprising when the billionaire had to guess the cost of certain supermarket items. For most people, a trip to the grocery is a routine task, but according to Insider, Gates admitted on the show that the last time he went to the grocery store was “a long time ago.” With some of his price guesses for everyday food items, it was obvious to the crowd and viewers that Gates did not do the grocery shopping.
DeGeneres had five random supermarket items for Gates to guess their prices within $1. If he could guess three out of the five items, the live audience would win a special prize. The audience and DeGeneres quickly lost confidence when his first guess was $5 for a box of Rice-A-Roni, which was actually $1. Tide Pods were the next item, and he started with the first guess of $4 before the audience encouraged him to go higher. Gates’ final guess was $10, which was still $10 short of the actual cost of the laundry detergent. The third time was a charm for Gates, as he was close with his guess of $4 for dental floss. However, it didn’t last very long with his extremely wrong guesses for pizza rolls and TGI Fridays frozen spinach and artichoke dip. With the audience’s and DeGeneres’ help, Gates guessed a price close enough to make them winners.
The biggest price guessing fail on the show’s segment
Although Gates did not have much luck correctly guessing prices of random grocery items on The Ellen Show without help from the audience, the billionaire’s biggest guessing fail was for Totino’s pizza rolls. As a favorite snack for kids and adults, many people have a reasonable idea for the price of one bag. However, Gates thought a bag of pizza rolls costs $22. The audience got their fill of laughter from his crazy guess, which prompted him to lower his guess to $15 before ending with a final guess of $8. On the show, the actual cost for a bag of Totino’s pizza rolls was revealed to be $8.98.
Bill Gates’ current net worth
Gates has sold tens of billions of dollars worth of Microsoft shares over the years, and Celebrity Net Worth states that he owns less than 1.3% of Microsoft today. While Gates transitioned from his day-to-day role at Microsoft in the mid-2000s and stepped down as Chairman in 2020, the success of the software company is responsible for his ability to live his life of luxury without a worry about the grocery bill. Currently, Gates’ net worth is $148 billion.
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