What Kind Of Car Does Bill Gates Drive?

The old joke is, "Where does a 500-pound gorilla sit?" And the answer is, "Anywhere he wants!"

So, what kind of car does one of the world's richest men drive? Anything he wants. And what he wants, historically, is a Porsche.

Bill Gates is legendary in high school computer labs across the world. He and Paul Allen were teenagers when they sold their first software, which tracked traffic patterns in their hometown of Seattle. Gates later dropped out of Harvard to start working professionally in computer software. The two men combined technical genius with an aggressive business strategy, to create the world's biggest software company, Microsoft. You might have heard of it. By the age of 31, he was the world's youngest self-made billionaire, according to Biography. Bill Gates now has a lot of money, to the point of being one of the wealthiest human beings on Earth, and he famously advised, "Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one." Or selling cars to one. He has a net worth estimated in April 2020 at $102 billion, according to Business Insider, and a home in Medina, Washington, with a 23-car garage.

Gates is famously charitable — with his wife, he established the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and works with other super-wealthy benefactors, like Warren Buffett, to channel donations to worthy enterprises — and that is, in fact, where he spends his time these days, after stepping down from Microsoft. Still, the man loves his cars.

According to Softpedia News, Bill Gates' mug shot was taken after he was busted for reckless driving in 1977 in New Mexico — at the wheel of a Porsche. DuPont Registry Daily reports that Gates bought a Porsche 911 Turbo in 1979. In the 1980s, Gates went to great legal lengths to be able to import a Porsche 959, described as a "twin-turbo supercar," with a six-speed manual transmission (five-speed manual transmissions are for lesser mortals) and the ability to go from 0-60 in all of three seconds. Sadly (sort of), the model hadn't been cleared for use in the U.S., including emissions standards, and Gates's 959 sat idle for almost a decade, until his work (with others) got legislation passed that made ownership possible.

Bill's crush on Porsche continues to this day. In early 2020 he acquired a Porsche Taycan, what Inc. calls "a worthy competitor with Tesla's Model S." The Tesla is priced considerably less than the Taycan ... but Porsche, right? "I have to say it's a premium-priced car, but it is very, very cool," Gates said in a recent interview posted on YouTube. "That's my first electric car, and I'm enjoying it a lot." There's lots to enjoy, including the fact that the car will go from 0-60 miles per hour in 2.4 seconds.

It's the little things, right?