The Time a PayPal Glitch Accidentally Made a Man the Richest Person on Earth
The richest people in the world usually make their fortune through tech empires, oil, or years of investments. But in 2013, one man climbed to the top of the money ladder on an ordinary morning when he logged into his account and saw a number so large that it barely made sense on the screen. For a short moment, he held a title that none of the wealthiest men in history had ever touched.
The $92 Quadrillion Shock
Chris Reynolds, a Pennsylvania resident, opened his PayPal statement in July 2013 and saw a balance of $92,233,720,368,547,800. That figure is $92 quadrillion, more than a million times the wealth of Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim, who was the world’s richest man at the time with $67 billion. The number PayPal mistakenly credited to Reynolds was higher than the entire global GDP combined.
Up until that day, the most money Reynolds had ever earned on PayPal was just over $1,000 after selling vintage BMW tires on eBay. With a balance like that, theoretical spending plans quickly became part of the fun. Reynolds joked about paying off the U.S. national debt and then picking up the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team if the price was right.
The scale is difficult to picture. If you spent a million dollars every day, it would take more than 250,000 years to get through $92 quadrillion.
Reality Returns
The dream didn’t last long. Within minutes, Reynolds refreshed his account, and the numbers dropped back to zero. PayPal admitted to the mistake, corrected the balance, and issued a statement calling it an error. To make amends, the company offered to donate an undisclosed amount to a charity of his choice.
Modern finance depends on lines of code and databases. One error can put impossible numbers in the wrong place. Chris Reynolds will never come close to that figure again, but his name is now tied to one of the most unusual financial stories on the internet.