12 Cars That Billionaires Really Want As A Daily Driver

Ask most people to imagine what the life of a billionaire is like, and they might picture beachside mansions, Michelin-starred restaurants, and a fleet of supercars. However, the reality can actually be quite different, as some of the world's richest people prefer to live a more regular life. In fact, those with the most wealth are often the least flashy, especially in their car-buying habits. Some might have one or two expensive cars in their collection, but when it comes to daily drivers, the cars of many billionaires are surprisingly unremarkable.

They're often the kind of car that would be easy to walk past in the street without noticing, and sometimes, that's a deliberate choice. After all, those who keep a low profile prefer to avoid attracting unnecessary attention while they're just going about their daily lives. But, often, the primary reason for driving what they do is that they simply aren't bothered about having anything flashy. As long as their car gets them from A to B, they simply aren't fussed about having the luxury features or prestigious badges that many less wealthy individuals will splash the cash on. These 12 cars are all daily drivers for the world's richest people, and yet just by looking at them, you'd probably have no idea.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett built his $98.4 billion empire through his investment firm Berkshire Hathaway, which owns significant stakes in brands like Geico, Duracell and Dairy Queen. He has always been keen to live frugally, and he still lives in the same house that he bought for $31,500 in 1958. It's worth about $650,000 today, less than 0.01% of his wealth. Much like his home, his car is also very modest, a 2014 Cadillac XTS that Buffett bought new.

This isn't his first Cadillac, as his previous daily driver was a 2006 DTS, which he traded in when he bought the XTS. CNN Business reports that Buffett initially sent his daughter, Susie, into a local Cadillac dealership to find him a suitable car, where she told staff that she was browsing on behalf of her unnamed elderly father. The saleswoman reportedly thought that Susie was a mystery shopper sent to test her knowledge of the brand's vehicles, but Susie eventually gave the game away and let slip that she was shopping for one of the world's richest men. Buffett was so impressed with his new purchase that he even sent a letter of thanks to GM's CEO at the time, Mary Barra.

Azim Premji is India's second-richest man, with a personal wealth of around $31 billion at his peak. He's now given around two-thirds of that fortune away to charitable causes, reports Yahoo Finance, but he's still worth north of $10 billion. His wealth came from his leadership of Wipro, a company that was founded by Premji's father and originally produced vegetable oil. After his father's unexpected death, Premji dropped out of his Stanford University degree to go back to India and run the company, eventually transforming it into a technology and computing business.

Despite his high-flying business career, Yahoo Finance reports that Premji has always preferred to lead a normal life outside of work. He still takes flights in economy class, prefers rickshaw rides to chauffeured limousines, and has only ever owned regular cars. Over the years, he has reportedly owned a Ford Escort, Honda City, and a Toyota Corolla, but his most recent purchase is a Mercedes-Benz E-Class that he bought used off one of his employees.

The famous (some would say infamous) co-founder and CEO of Meta, formerly known as Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is one of the world's youngest billionaires. He founded Facebook in 2004, originally creating it as a way for himself and other Harvard students to communicate with one another. It exploded in popularity, and by 2008, Zuckerberg's net worth was around $1.5 billion. Bloomberg reports that his current net worth is around $65 billion, down around $60 billion from his peak in 2021 thanks to a market crash that affected most major tech stocks in early 2022.

Zuckerberg's car collection is relatively small but very varied in nature. He's been spotted driving around in an Acura TSX, but he's also been known to drive a Honda Fit and Volkswagen Golf GTI. Then, in complete contrast to the rest of his cars, Zuckerberg also owns a Pagani Huayra, an exclusive hypercar that came with a price tag of $1,400,000 when he purchased it in 2014. Still not very much to a man with as much money as Zuckerberg, but an odd choice considering the rest of his collection is so frugal.

He might not be quite as high-profile as Bill Gates, but Steve Ballmer was instrumental in building Microsoft during its early years. According to Forbes, he joined the company in 1980, rising through the ranks until he was made CEO in 2000. He left Microsoft in 2014 and used his wealth to buy the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team for $2 billion that same year. At the time, his net worth was an estimated $19.3 billion, but since then, it has shot up to around $91.4 billion in total. That makes him the 9th richest man in the world in 2022.

Ballmer's father was an executive at Ford Motor Company, and he has always remained loyal to the brand. In 2009, Ballmer was presented with a new Ford Fusion Hybrid, which was the one-millionth vehicle delivered with Ford's SYNC technology. Ballmer reportedly used it as his daily driver for years after, and it's thought that he still owns the car to this day.

The co-founder and CEO of software company Oracle, Larry Ellison's spending habits are a bit more lavish than many of the other billionaires featured here. According to the LA Times, he's made a number of big-ticket purchases over the years, including a superyacht and even a private island in Hawaii. He also boasted a car collection that any enthusiast would be proud of, with some of his purchases including a McLaren F1, a Lexus LFA, and an Audi R8. But, his daily driver is a little more down-to-earth than his weekend toys.

He drives a Lexus LS600h, a great car no doubt, but nowhere near as flashy as the others in his collection. The big Lexus is a flagship model for the brand, packed full of all the latest features and tech, plus Lexus' ever-reliable hybrid powertrain. Ellison's car was one of the first examples of the fourth-generation LS600h and has been identified by Club Lexus members as a 2007 model year car.

Michael Bloomberg is the founder of the eponymous Bloomberg LP, a financial information and media company of which Bloomberg still owns 88%, according to Forbes. He got his start on Wall Street at an investment bank called Salomon Brothers, but after he was fired, he founded the company that made him his fortune. At present, he's worth an estimated $82 billion, a sharp increase from 2021, when he was only worth around $59 billion. In addition to his career on Wall Street and his success with his own business, Bloomberg was the mayor of New York City for 12 years.

During that time, his car of choice was a Chevrolet Suburban, which could often be seen in a high-security motorcade transporting Bloomberg around the city. His dislike of traveling in a hot car meant that he insisted that his Suburban was cooled before he got into it. But, with New York's laws only allowing cars to sit idle for three minutes, his team had to think of an alternative way to prepare the car to just the right temperature. Their solution: build a specially-adapted air conditioning unit that could be stuck through the window of the SUV before Bloomberg arrived, much to the amusement and confusion of passersby.

Amazon founder and all-around business magnate Jeff Bezos hit headlines recently when the Dutch city of Rotterdam decided that it wouldn't dismantle a historic bridge to allow his $500 million superyacht to reach the open ocean, leaving it stranded in its construction dock. But, Bezos hasn't always been so keen to spend his fortune, as when Amazon first started out, even his desk was made out of a recycled wooden door to save money. Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, but by 1997, he was already worth over $12 billion thanks to the company's rapid expansion. However, his sense of frugality was very much still present, and the same year, Bezos bought a Honda Accord to use as his daily driver.

He continued driving various models of Honda until at least 2013, although in recent years his car collection has expanded to include various hypercars. He reportedly now owns a Lykan HyperSport, Bugatti Veyron Mansory, and a Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, among many others. It seems that, over the years, Bezos has lost his desire to save money wherever possible, but for the first decade of his success, a humble Honda was all he drove.

Alice Walton is one of the richest women in the world, with a net worth of roughly $61.2 billion according to the latest estimations. Her fortune comes from her father, Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart. Alice is his only daughter, but unlike her siblings, she has not been active in running the family business, preferring to curate art from the likes of Andy Warhol and Mark Rothko. She opened a museum to show off this collection in her hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas, in 2011.

Sam Walton was famously frugal with his money, and it seems like he instilled the same values in his family, as all of the Walton siblings drive unremarkable cars. Alice's daily driver is a 2006 Ford F-150 King Ranch, according to NBC, which she has owned from new. Her father reportedly drove a 1979 version of the same truck until he passed away in 1992, aged 74.

Canadian business magnate Jim Pattison has run the Jim Pattison Group since 1961, starting out in the automotive business, but diversifying into owning everything from farm machinery manufacturers to Ripleys Believe It Or Not! His net worth is estimated at $12 billion, but according to the Financial Post, you wouldn't know that from meeting him. He still works seven days a week in the office, and when he was interviewed in 2021, had a total of five new business acquisitions in the works.

He was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, but moved to Vancouver with his parents at a young age. He still lives there today, driving to work in a Chrysler Pacifica. The Pacifica is one of only two models left in the Chrysler lineup, alongside the long-running 300C. Pattison still owns several Chrysler dealerships, alongside dealerships from many other major brands. Automotive News reports that the Pattison Group has 25 dealerships in Western Canada alone, selling over 21,000 cars each year.

Richard Branson's Virgin Group deals in everything from cell phone networks to spacecraft, in a history that spans around 50 years. His personal worth is roughly $4.2 billion, and apart from his businesses, he's probably best known for living on a private island in the Caribbean, which he bought for $180,000 in 1978. Despite that, he's generally very frugal with money, even turning his home into an investment. In the early 2000s, he offered fellow billionaires the chance to rent out his island, which came with 31 staff, for £10,000 a day when he wasn't living there. That's roughly $18,000 per day in today's money, accounting for inflation.

In a 2015 interview, Branson claimed that he only owned one car, a classic Humber Super Snipe that he kept "for special occasions." The car is very rare but not that valuable, with a similar example recently selling for £8,600 ($10,310) at auction. Instead of a car, Branson's main set of wheels is reportedly now a Scott E-Aspect 720 electric bike, which he uses to get around his island. Before he reduced his car collection down to just a single classic Humber, Branson also owned a Range Rover. In his interview with The Sunday Times, he claimed the car saved his life after he got into a bad accident in it.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates remains one of the richest men in the world, despite the fact that he has lost the overall 'richest person' crown to Jeff Bezos, and recently, Elon Musk. He invested his fortune from Microsoft into a variety of technology businesses, and he has also given away vast sums of money through his philanthropic organization, the Gates Foundation. His car collection is nothing to be sniffed at, as Gates is a big Porsche fan, and has owned multiple 911s and even a 959 over the years.

But, his daily driver is nowhere near as fast. When he's just commuting to the office, Gates apparently favors a 2008 Ford Focus, which he has owned from new. It's a pretty unremarkable car, but then again, it's also a good way to avoid unwanted attention. However, the car originally featured in a tongue-in-cheek promotional video about Gates' day at work at Microsoft, so it's unclear whether he really uses the car as much as he claimed in the clip.

A long-time favorite of millionaires and billionaires across Silicon Valley, the Toyota Prius is perhaps the most predictable car to feature on this list. Google co-founder Larry Page is particularly fond of his, and according to CNBC, fellow Google co-founder Sergey Brin also uses one for daily driving. Both Page and Brin made their fortunes developing what would become the world's dominant search engine, with Google's parent company Alphabet now bringing in over $200 billion in revenue per year. Page owns roughly 3% of the company's shares, boosting his net worth to around $99 billion.

Page retired from his role as Alphabet's CEO in 2019, but he remains a board member and shareholder. Alongside his stake in Google, he's also invested in a startup that's developing flying cars, called Kitty Hawk. The startup plans to begin testing for its cars in 2023, so if it goes well, perhaps Page's next car will be a little more unusual than his current daily driver.