Warren Buffett is ending his career as perhaps the world's most famous and revered investor, saying he will step down as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of 2025, and hand over the reins to Vice Chairman Greg Abel.
The move caps an era for Berkshire after Buffett's extraordinary 60 years at the helm, which made him a household name, a multi-billionaire, and an American success story.
"I think the time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year end," Buffett, 94, said on Saturday as he wrapped up Berkshire's annual meeting in Omaha, adding he would still "hang around and conceivably be useful in a few cases" but that the "final word" would be Abel's.
The announcement prompted an outpouring of praise for Buffett from CEOs and investors.
"Warren Buffett represents everything good about American capitalism and America itself - investing in the growth of our nation and its businesses with integrity, optimism, and common sense," said Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple (AAPL.O), in a post on X said: "There's never been someone like Warren, and countless people, myself included, have been inspired by his wisdom. It's been one of the great privileges of my life to know him."
Buffett's move will propel Abel into the spotlight at Berkshire. Abel, who has long been identified by Berkshire to be Buffett's successor, may not have the star power of Buffett, although he is expected to preserve the culture of the conglomerate.
Buffett said Abel and most of Berkshire's board of directors hadn't been aware of his plans before the announcement, though Buffett had told his two children, who are directors. Berkshire’s board of directors will meet on Sunday to discuss the transition, he said.
Abel, 62, has been a Berkshire vice chairman since 2018 and was named Buffett's expected successor as chief executive in 2021.
"I couldn't be more humbled and honored to be part of Berkshire as we go forth," Abel told shareholders.
Buffett also said he had "zero" intention of selling any of his Berkshire stock, nearly all of which will be donated after his death.
"The decision to keep every share is an economic decision because I think the prospects of Berkshire will be better under Greg's management than mine," Buffett said.
REMARKABLE RUN
The decision to step down caps a remarkable 60-year run where Buffett transformed Berkshire from a failing textile company into a $1.16 trillion conglomerate with businesses across the U.S. economy.
Buffett's own fortune totals $168.2 billion according to Forbes magazine, nearly all of which is in Berkshire stock.
Cole Smead, chief executive of Smead Capital Management, said after Buffett's announcement, he turned to his father, Bill Smead, who founded the firm, and said: "Well, it's the end of an era. It's sad, but it's life."
Berkshire's stock price has risen 19% this year, compared with a 3% drop in the Standard & Poor's 500 (.SPX).
Many investors have viewed the conglomerate and Buffett's stewardship as a safe haven from uncertainty about the economy and U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policies.
"The question going forward is: will Berkshire still have a Buffett premium when Buffett is not there?" said Cathy Seifert, an analyst at CFRA Research. "You're buying a stock, and you're also getting the investing prowess of a legend. With that legend gone, what is the value?"
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'GREG CAN DO BETTER'
Abel had already been taking on many of Buffett's responsibilities, including capital allocation.
Asked during the meeting how his oversight of Berkshire's 189 operating businesses would differ from Buffett's, Abel said: "More active, but hopefully in a very positive way."
Buffett said Berkshire's board could make arrangements for the transfer of power over the next few months, and he could "conceivably be useful in a few cases" after Abel takes over.
"The fact that you can do pretty well doesn't mean you couldn't do better, and Greg can do better," Buffett told shareholders before the announcement.
Berkshire's annual shareholder weekend, which Buffett calls "Woodstock for Capitalists," annually draws tens of thousands of people to Omaha for the meeting and for a series of shareholder events across the city, including shopping.
The company has said it intends to continue holding the weekends. Many shareholders have said they will keep attending after Buffett leaves, though many believe attendance will drop.
Buffett took over Berkshire in 1965 and, with his longtime friend and business partner Charlie Munger, who died in November 2023, built it into an American success story.
Headquartered in Omaha, where Buffett and Munger grew up, Berkshire now has close to 200 businesses, including Geico car insurance, the BNSF railroad, industrial and chemical companies, utilities, Dairy Queen ice cream, Fruit of the Loom underwear, and See's Candies.
It also ended March with $264 billion of stocks, including Apple (AAPL.O), American Express (AXP.N) and Bank of America (BAC.N).
'ORACLE OF OMAHA'
Buffett became known as the "Oracle of Omaha" for his investing success as well as his folksy wisdom and modest lifestyle.
While Berkshire stock rose 5,502,284% from 1965 to 2024, Buffett never moved from a home he paid $31,500 for in 1958.
Buffett was a disciple of Benjamin Graham, the economist and his former professor, stressing the importance of company fundamentals and not overpaying for assets.
That approach often made it hard to deploy Berkshire's ever-growing cash hoard, which reached $347.7 billion at the end of March.
Abel joined the former MidAmerican Energy, now known as Berkshire Hathaway Energy, in 1992, eight years before Berkshire took it over. He later led that business for a decade.
Buffett's fortune would have been much bigger had he not, since 2006, given away more than half his Berkshire shares to charity.
Nearly all of the rest is expected to go into a new charitable trust overseen by his daughter Susie and sons Howard and Peter.
Abel will face challenges, including how to help Berkshire grow meaningfully without overpaying for acquisitions, whether to pay a dividend, and how to deploy the cash.
Howard Buffett, 70, is expected to eventually succeed his father as Berkshire's non-executive chairman, to help preserve the company's culture.
When Greg Abel succeeds Warren Buffett at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N) at the end of this year, he is expected to preserve the culture at the behemoth even if he does not match the star power of his legendary boss.
Abel, 62, now a Berkshire vice chairman, is expected by investors and analysts to uphold the $1.18 trillion conglomerate's track record of investing in companies for the long haul and eschewing dividend payments to shareholders.
Berkshire, which owns railroads, insurance companies, and an ice-cream maker, has been planning for decades for the eventuality when Buffett, 94, who has run the company since 1965, is no longer there.
Still, it came as a surprise when Buffett announced on Saturday that Abel should replace him as chief executive. The Oracle of Omaha had not before signaled a clear intention on when to step aside.
Buffett has long alluded to his advanced age, and before announcing his planned departure at Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, he signaled Abel was more up to the job than he was.
"It's working way better with Greg Abel than with me, because I don't want to work as hard as he works," Buffett said.
One questioner asked Abel what his management approach to subsidiaries would be. "More active," he responded.
Abel also praised Buffett, saying, "Warren has obviously been a remarkable teacher, and I have benefited from that for years."
A DETAILS MAN
Gregory Edward Abel was born in Edmonton, Alberta, on June 1, 1962, to a working-class family.
Working odd jobs, he cleaned discarded bottles and filled fire extinguishers, according to the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, an education non-profit that honored Abel in 2018.
"It was a real working-class family where sometimes people had jobs and sometimes they didn’t," Abel said about his childhood in a video posted on the Horatio Alger website. "You realized we were all working hard to try to advance our family."
Abel graduated in 1984 from the University of Alberta and worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers and energy firm CalEnergy.
He joined Berkshire Hathaway Energy, then known as MidAmerican Energy, in 1992, which Berkshire later took over, and became MidAmerican's chief in 2008.
Abel now oversees Berkshire's non-insurance operations, such as BNSF, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and dozens of chemical, industrial, and retail operations.
He has in the last year also taken over some of the capital allocation responsibilities that had been Buffett's.
Buffett said last year he would also want Abel to have final say on decisions regarding Berkshire's portfolio of public stocks, a job previously thought would be left to others.
Many executives who work with Abel call him a perceptive questioner who closely scrutinizes financial metrics and wants to closely understand the businesses and how they're run.
Abel's questions "ensure you are thinking through directives and plans as a company," said Chris Kelly, chief executive of HomeServices of America, the largest U.S. residential real estate brokerage. "You come away smarter from having a conversation with him."
Before announcing his plan to step down as Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N) chief executive at the end of the year, Warren Buffett offered a fervent defense of trade on Saturday, saying tariffs should not be a "weapon" and the United States would be better off if other countries shared its prosperity.
Buffett spoke at Saturday's annual meeting of his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), after a month when U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policies prompted big stock price declines and increased fears of recession.
"Balanced trade is good for the world," and "trade should not be a weapon," said Buffett, 94, who has run Berkshire for 60 years and is arguably the world's most revered investor.
"I don't think it's a good idea to design a world where a few countries say, ha ha ha, we've won," Buffett added. "I do think that the more prosperous the rest of the world becomes ... the more prosperous we'll become."
Berkshire itself has remained cautious toward markets, as its cash stake swelled in the first quarter to a record $347.7 billion.
At the meeting, Buffett fielded more than four hours of shareholder questions, with help from Berkshire's vice chairmen Greg Abel, who is expected to replace Buffett as chief executive, and Ajit Jain.
Buffett parried a question about the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk's cost-cutting initiative, while warning that federal budget deficits are "unsustainable" and the U.S. government must get its fiscal house in order.
"It's a job that I don't want, but a job that should be done, and Congress does not seem to be doing it," Buffett said, prompting audience applause.
Buffett also urged patience to investors worried about the direction of the U.S. economy and the country itself, saying they should reconsider their approach to investing if sudden market declines left them unsettled.
He nonetheless maintained his trademark long-term optimism for the country, saying criticism of policies and the people who make them is par for the course.
"We're always in the process of change," he said. "If I were being born today, you know, I would just keep negotiating in the womb until they said you can be in the United States. We're all pretty lucky."
NET SELLER OF STOCKS, AGAIN
Berkshire reported its cash stake with its first-quarter results, where insurance losses from January's wildfires in southern California contributed to a 14% decline in operating profit to $9.64 billion.
Insurance businesses including Geico had a very strong year in 2024, and Buffett said that won't be replicated in 2025. "Prices are down this year, risks are up," he said.
Quarterly net income fell 64% to $4.6 billion, reflecting unrealized losses on stocks such as Apple (AAPL.O).
Berkshire's cash stake grew from $334.2 billion at year-end. The company has repurchased no stock since last May and has been a net seller of stock for 10 straight quarters.
Buffett downplayed concern about Berkshire's cash, saying the company "came close" to spending $10 billion recently, but that buying opportunities don't come in an orderly fashion.
Abel made clear he shares Buffett's philosophy toward building up cash and spending it wisely on businesses that fit Berkshire's culture.
A large amount of cash is "a strategic asset, and it allows us to weather the difficult times and not be dependent on anybody," Abel said.
Before acquiring whole businesses, "the value relative to the risk has to be right," he added.
Buffett and Abel also strongly backed five Japanese trading houses - Itochu, Marubeni (8002.T), Mitsubishi (8058.T), Mitsui (8031.T) and Sumitomo (8053.T) - in which Berkshire has invested, and said Berkshire could hold its stakes for 50 years.
"We're building relationships," Abel said. "And we really hope to do big things with them."
Vice Chairman Ajit Jain, who oversees insurance operations, told another questioner that the Geico car insurer has made "rapid strides" upgrading technology to gauge driver behavior and price policies appropriately for risk.
LINING UP TO HEAR BUFFETT ONE LAST TIME
Berkshire's share price has weathered a turbulent period for markets in 2025, rising 18.9% while the Standard & Poor's 500 (.SPX) was down 3.3%.
For many, Berkshire's diverse portfolio of businesses offers a mirror into the broader U.S. economy, which shrank for the first time in three years in the first quarter.
Berkshire's portfolio includes the BNSF railroad, Geico car insurance, energy businesses, real estate brokerage HomeServices, and Fruit of the Loom underwear.
Berkshire's meeting draws tens of thousands of people to Omaha.
Thousands of shareholders lined up in 40-degree weather (4 degrees Celsius) before doors opened at 7 a.m. at the downtown Omaha arena housing the meeting. Some arrived very early.
"Warren is getting old so I wanted to seize the opportunity," said Wang Yu, who flew from Guangzhou, China and said he lined up at 11 p.m. Friday night. "His ideas are simple, but you want to immerse yourself in the moment."
Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N) Shareholders on Saturday rejected a resolution requiring the company to report on risks from its subsidiaries' race-based initiatives, one of seven proposals tied to diversity, artificial intelligence, and other issues that were voted down.
Shareholders also voted against a resolution that Berkshire report on how its business practices affect employees based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and political views.
Also voted down were proposals requiring Berkshire's board of directors to create a committee to oversee diversity and inclusion, having independent directors oversee AI-related risks, and requiring a report on "voluntary" environmental activities that exceed federal and state requirements.
The votes were announced after Buffett unexpectedly announced he planned to step down as Berkshire's chief executive at the end of the year.
He will be replaced by Vice Chairman Greg Abel, who presided over the reading of the shareholder proposals.
Buffett, who controls about 30% of Berkshire's voting power, and the other Berkshire directors opposed all seven proposals, finding them unnecessary and in some instances inconsistent with the company's decentralized culture.
The board also said Berkshire's operating companies set policies concerning race and other employment factors. Berkshire's overall approach was "simple - follow the law and do the right thing."
Businesses across corporate America have curbed public support or initiatives for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, as conservatives, including U.S. President Donald Trump, push to curb DEI in the private sector and society, as well as in the federal government.
Berkshire has discussed generally in its annual reports the hiring practices of its operating businesses. In its latest report in February, it removed a reference to "diversity and inclusion in the workforce" as a hiring goal.
At Saturday's meeting, Berkshire shareholders also reelected all eligible directors, including Buffett and Abel.