Chris, 69, became the richest person in the world — for a few minutes

The dream of being the richest man on earth is as attractive as it is elusive.

For Chris Reynolds, 69, from Pennsylvania in the US, a dream has come true – for two minutes. When the American opened the account on the Paypal payment service in June 2013, the balance suddenly stabilized at 92 quadrillion, which made him a thousand times richer than the gross domestic product of the whole world combined, writes The Independent.

Paypal had mistakenly inserted more money than there was on the whole earth, and for two minutes it made Chris Reynolds on paper exponentially richer than the richest person in the world at the time, Carlos Slim.

He received an apology from the company

Paypal caught the error early on and quickly corrected it. Chris Reynolds also received an apology, and in a statement the company wrote “This is clearly an error, and we appreciate that Mr. Reynolds understood that this was the case.” After changing the account balance, Paypal also offered to pay an amount to charity as Chris Reynolds himself had to decide on the organization, writes British Daily Mail.

When asked what Reynolds would have done if he had been allowed to keep the money, the answer was that he had first and foremost paid off the country’s national debt. Another hopeful dream was to buy the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team.

Reynolds was a heavy user of Paypal selling vintage auto parts. According to the Daily Mail, $1,000, roughly equivalent to 10,000 kroner, was the highest amount the American had previously received through Paypal when he sold a set of tires for a BMW.

“It was a strange thing, maybe it was someone just wanting to joke,” Reynolds said after the incident.