The top bid is $40,100, but the auction is likely to fetch far more before it finishes late Friday.

Last year’s winning bidder paid out more than $650,000 for lunch with Buffett and up to seven others at Manhattan steakhouse Smith & Wollensky.

Monet raised from the lunch with the 77-year-old Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, benefit the Glide Foundation, a nonprofit in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district that offers programs for the poor, hungry and homeless.

Buffett began donating the lunches to raise money for charity in 2000.

Posted: 06|25|08 at 10:26 am. Filed under: US News.