Warren Buffett retires as Berkshire Hathaway CEO

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After working for sixty years in the business he bought for himself “The stupidest investment of your lifeWednesday was Warren Buffett’s last day as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.

Strategy of using insurance premiums, “swim without sinkingMaking brilliant investments in stocks and helping buy out entire companies turned the struggling textile mill into a $1 trillion conglomerate and made him one of the richest people in the world. net worth more than $150 billion.

It has already distributed shares currently worth $208 billion and guided his children eventually donating almost everything left.

This isn’t actually a “retirement”. At 95, he will remain chairman of the board and still plans to come to the company’s Omaha Headquarters as usual.

But he said it would be so”gets quiet… soft” and will cede all decision-making authority to new CEO Greg Abel, who has served as vice president of non-insurance operations since 2018. Abel first joined Berkshire in 2000, closing the deal. controlling interest in MidAmerican Energywhere he is president.

Still, When Buffett made the announcement at the annual meeting in May He said he planned to resign at the end of the year, hoping he could help, especially “if we come across big opportunities or something.”

Becky Fast, CNBC’s long-time Berkshire/Buffett correspondent, Noted on Wednesday’s “Squawk Box”He said Abel had run “mostly” non-insurance companies “for years” and had done “an outstanding job” of keeping things running smoothly and dealing with many problems that Buffett did not want to solve alone.

He hopes Abel’s hold on Buffett and his 30% voting control will be useful as a “fireshield to anyone who wants to come in and say you’re not Warren Buffett, this isn’t your company.”

Abel has been putting his own stamp on the way Berkshire manages its wholly owned subsidiaries for several years.

in 2023 in a section of the newsletter We headlined an interview with Buffett and Abel on CNBC in Japan, “Things are starting to change at Berkshire.”

Although both men were smiling and doing this almost as a joke, it was clear that Abel was much more involved in managing the subsidiaries, as opposed to Buffett’s famous decentralized intervention approach.

At the annual meeting in 1999, Buffett and Munger said: their “non-interference is of tremendous value, at least to the managers and businesses who join us.”

“Not only do people have more time to work on productive things, but they also probably really appreciate the fact that they’re left alone.”

Twenty-four years later, Buffett said, “Our managers love autonomy, but they also get lonely…I give them autonomy, but Greg gives them both, and he gets a little more discipline from managers than I would.”

Earlier this month, Berkshire announced it would add a new one. new management layerHe appointed the CEO of the NetJets subsidiary to “support the outstanding CEOs of our 32 consumer products, services and retail businesses and promote Berkshire’s culture and values.”

But while Berkshire is starting to change, it won’t be a dramatic change overnight.

As a shareholder Ann Winblad told CNBC’s “Change” WednesdayThe company will “work differently” with a new CEO, but there will be “no fundamental change in their strategy.”

Andrew Bary too Barron’s writes Buffett’s continued involvement in the company “will require important considerations such as potential dividends.” [which Buffett has consistently opposed]”The stock buybacks and distribution of Berkshire’s more than $350 billion cash balance may remain unresolved for some time, perhaps until Buffett’s death.”

But over the very long term, it will be difficult for Berkshire to avoid becoming like other companies that do not have Buffett’s spectacular success in shielding management from impatient investors who would force the company to abandon its insistence on waiting for the right opportunities and resist typical C-suite executives seeking to justify its existence by constantly doing “something.”

Another big unknown is what will happen to Berkshire’s stock price without Buffett as CEO.

This year, the benchmark S&P 500 index declined as investors reacted negatively to Buffett’s announcement at the beginning of May that he would hand over power to Abel at the end of the year.

A shares It closed at an all-time high of $809,350, the day before Buffett’s surprise.

Meanwhile, S&P It is up 16.4% for the year after coming close to falling into a bear market in April following President Trump’s announcement. tariff announcement.

As a result, the 22.4 percentage point outperformance of Berkshire’s B shares in May turned into a 5.5 percentage point deficit at the end of the year.

Including dividends, the S&P has returned 17.9% this year, bringing Berkshire’s underperformance to 7.0 percentage points compared to a slim 0.5 point win in 2024.

Holdings as of September 30, 2025, as reported. Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F application On November 14, 2025, except:

A complete list of holdings and current market values ​​is available on CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.

Please send me any questions or comments about the newsletter at: alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (We’re sorry, but we do not forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)

Additionally, reading Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders is highly recommended. There are people gathered on Berkshire’s website here.

Happy birthday!

— Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch