• Mark Zuckerberg donated one of his gold chains to a charity auction organized by his sister.
• The anonymous winner bid $40,500 — but Aaron White was close with his $38,000 bid.
• The chain was gold-plated, not even solid gold.

How much would you pay to look like Mark Zuckerberg? For someone out there, the answer was: more than $40,000.

Zuckerberg donated one of his gold chains — specifically the one he wore at his well-photographed 40th birthday party — to a charity auction run by his sister.

While the auction website estimated the market value of the gold-plated (not even solid gold!) necklace at $425, the winning bid came in at $40,500.

The winner was an anonymous bidder whose username was simply "near." The runner-up went by the username "ElonRWA (Bureau of Internet Culture) (Crypto bros with infinite money)."

I know, I know.

The money went to Inflection Grants, an organization run by two Silicon Valley venture capitalists that gives small grants to young people. The auction ran as part of a charity poker tournament organized by Arielle Zuckerberg. Other auction items included 49ers tickets and a wine tasting with their father, Edward Zuckerberg.

I might not have been able to track down the anonymous winner or runner-up (I asked one of the charity's organizers whether their payment actually came through but didn't hear back), but I did get hold of the person who came in third in the bidding for Zuck's necklace. He's a real person — a real person who is incredibly sad to be missing out on a chain once worn by a man who wore his own name in a Latin idiom on a T-shirt to a company event.

Aaron White, the founder of AppyPeople, an AI startup, bid $38,000 on the necklace. Almost enough to win, but he lost out at the last second.

But … why bid?

"Zuck, at this point, is a historical business figure by any measure," he told Business Insider. "So it's a tiny, tiny slice of some form of American history."

White was willing to make such a large offer because he approved of the charity's mission. "It's for a good cause, showing people who want to build ... they can! And they can have an impact!" he wrote. "I donate money to similar causes — this is another way to do that but also get that little tiny history slice in the process."

Tragically, White could've bid more — his absolute ceiling was $45,000 — but he didn't want to go all in all at once. And then he ran out of time after the anonymous $40,500 bidder swooped in at the last second.

White has a shared history with Zuckerberg: They both attended Phillips Exeter Academy for high school. White was a few grades older, and while they didn't overlap, White said they had friends in common — and said Zuckerberg joined the same computer club that White had been president of during his time at the school.

Of course, the question is: If you owned Mark Zuckerberg's used gold chain, would you actually wear it?

"One-hundred percent yes — I would've worn it in all my video content/Zooms and around town," White said. "I live in Miami, no one would even notice."