Legendary investor Warren Buffett said today that he plans to step down from his role leading Berkshire Hathaway.
Buffett, 94, serves as the conglomerate’s chairman and chief executive. He said today that he will recommend to the Berkshire Hathaway board that longtime executive Greg Abel become CEO at the end of 2025.
“I think the time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year end,” Buffett said onstage at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in Omaha.
Buffett has previously signaled that his successor as CEO would be Abel, who already oversees Berkshire’s Wall Street investments. Abel has spent more than two decades at Berkshire.
Although Buffett will give up his official duties, he plans to keep his large stake in the company and plans to remain an informal presence there. “I would still hang around and conceivably be useful in a few cases, but the final word would be what Greg said,” Buffett said.
Other than Buffett’s children, most of Berkshire’s board of directors – including Abel – did not know of his intention to retire this year until his public announcement at the shareholder meeting, he said.
According to the Associated Press, Abel addressed the news onstage about an hour after Buffett’s announcement. “I just want to say I couldn’t be more humbled and honored to be part of Berkshire as we go forward,” he said.
Buffett, whose sustained success as an investor earned him the nickname “Oracle of Omaha,” is the fifth-richest person in the world, according to Forbes Magazine – amassing a net worth of some $168 billion. He became chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway in 1970 and earned a reputation as a savvy stock picker whose investments outperformed the S&P 500 index more often than not.
Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio for decades included a stake in The Washington Post Co., then controlled by the Graham family. He stepped down from The Post board in 2011. The newspaper was sold to billionaire Jeff Bezos in 2013.
Though Buffett became famous for his stock picks, Berkshire Hathaway over the years became a conglomerate in its own right, with wholly owned subsidiaries that have a massive presence in industries such as insurance, cargo rail, utilities and energy production.
Abel is chair of Berkshire Hathaway Energy and vice chair of Berkshire’s operations excluding insurance.
Abel is ready to take over as CEO, company director Ron Olson told CNBC. Olson, who is poised to step down from Berkshire’s board himself, said he hoped Buffett could continue to play an advisory role, comparing him to former vice chair Charlie Munger, who was seen as Buffett’s closest business partner before his death in 2023.
“I am very anxious to see Warren become the Charlie Munger for Greg Abel,” Olson said.
Earlier in today’s meeting, Buffett criticized tariffs and defended global trade, arguing that the United States stands to prosper by continuing to trade with international partners freely.
Buffett had previously refrained from publicly weighing in on President Donald Trump’s efforts to levy sweeping tariffs on American adversaries and allies alike. Buffett did not directly reference Trump on today, but he told the Omaha audience that “trade should not be a weapon.”
“Trade can be an act of war,” Buffett said. “And I think it’s led to bad things, just the attitudes it’s brought out in the United States.”
A trade war threatens to isolate the United States from the rest of the world, Buffett said.
“It’s a big mistake, in my view, when you have seven and a half billion people that don’t like you very well, and you have 300 million that are crowing in some way about how well they’ve done,” he said. “I don’t think it’s right and I don’t think it’s wise.”
(c) 2025, The Washington Post · Maegan Vazquez 
{Matzav.com}