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Leading figures in the business world have lined up to pay tribute to Warren Buffett after the 94-year-old announced he would retire as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway and hand over the reins to his vice-chair, Greg Abel.
Buffett shocked an arena full of shareholders over the weekend when he announced he would step down as the CEO and chair of the trillion-dollar conglomerate at the end of this year.
The investor, who is known as the “Sage of Omaha”, will recommend that Abel, who oversees most of Berkshire Hathaway’s investments, be named as his successor.
Thousands of investors at the annual general meeting in an arena in Omaha, Nebraska, gave Buffett a lengthy standing ovation in recognition of his 60 years of leading the company.
Buffett said: “I think the time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year end.
“I have no intention – zero – of selling one share of Berkshire Hathaway. I will give it away eventually. 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 made the announcement at the end of a five-hour question-and-answer session, and did not take any queries about his retirement plans. The only board members who knew about the announcement in advance were his children, Howard and Susie Buffett, he said. Abel, who was sitting next to Buffett on stage, was unaware, but stood to join the crowd in applauding his boss.
Abel, 62, who was born in Alberta, Canada, has been Buffett’s designated successor as CEO since 2001. He is a 25-year Berkshire veteran and already manages all of the conglomerate’s non-insurance businesses including dozens of fossil energy, chemical, real estate and retail operations.
The JP Morgan chief executive, Jamie Dimon, said Buffett represented “everything that is good about American capitalism and America itself – investing in the growth of our nation and its businesses with integrity, optimism and common sense”.
He said: “I’ve learned so much from him to this very day, and I am honoured to call him a friend.”
Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, said in a statement that there had never been anyone like Buffett, and that countless people, himself included, had been “inspired by his wisdom”.
Cook said: “It’s been one of the great privileges of my life to know him. And there’s no question that Warren is leaving Berkshire in great hands with Greg.”
Buffett has led the Omaha-based company since 1965, and is credited by many with transforming Berkshire from a flailing textiles manufacturer into a $1.03tn (£776bn) conglomerate with dozens of businesses in insurance, railroad, energy and other sectors. He built the conglomerate alongside his adviser and vice-chairman, Charlie Munger, who died aged 99 in 2023.
Buffett will be ending his career on a high. Berkshire Hathaway class-A shares, the type held by Buffett himself and his earliest investors, have risen by about 20% in the year to date. In the past five years they have more than tripled in value, and closed at a record high on Friday.
For decades, thousands of investors have descended upon Omaha to attend Berkshire Hathaway’s annual general meeting.
Buffett, a longtime Democratic mover and shaker, did not endorse Kamala Harris in 2024 or Joe Biden in 2020. He had previously endorsed Barack Obama twice and Hillary Clinton.
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Buffett has previously said he plans to donate 99.5% of his remaining wealth to a charitable trust overseen by his daughter and two sons when he dies. According to Forbes, Buffett has a net worth of $168.2bn.
Earlier on Saturday, Buffett warned about the dire global consequences of Donald Trump’s tariffs, telling thousands of investors gathered at the annual meeting that “there’s no question that trade can be an act of war”.
Buffett said Trump’s trade policies had raised the risk of global instability by angering the rest of the world. He said: “It’s a big mistake in my view when you have 7.5 billion people who don’t like you very well, and you have 300 million who are crowing about how they have done.
“We should be looking to trade with the rest of the world. We should do what we do best and they should do what they do best.”
In February, Berkshire reported a third straight record annual operating profit, rising 27% to $47.44bn, in 2024. It is unclear what impact Trump’s tariffs will have on Berkshire’s 189 operating businesses and shareholder profits.
Buffett was a student of Benjamin Graham, a British-born American economist known as the “father of value investing”, at Columbia Business School in the early 1950s. In the following decades Buffett developed a highly successful investment style, revered for its practical approach to stock-picking.
He is now regarded by many as the best investor in the world. The market value of Berkshire Hathaway’s shares has grown by an annualised 19.9% a year from 1965 to 2024, according to the company. That is almost double the blue chip S&P 500 index over the same period, which has delivered a 10.4% return, including dividends.
Nevertheless, Buffett has faced his share of controversies including anti-trust investigations and criticism from fire victims after Berkshire’s PacifiCorp utility failed to shut off power lines during a Labor Day weekend windstorm in 2020, leading to deadly wildfires spreading in Oregon and northern California.
Speaking before the retirement bombshell, Abel said that “keeping the lights on” was no longer a priority for the conglomerate’s utilities when the threat of wildfires became excessive. He said: “It’s around protecting the general public and being sure the fire doesn’t spread further.”
