‘Call me a big fan’: Warren Buffett once beat Bill Gates at dice—now he’s topped him as 2025’s biggest wealth gainer

Even as the global markets are rocked with uncertainty and volatility, Warren Buffett and his investment firm, Berkshire Hathaway has emerged as a beacon of strength and hope for investors, especially retail investors.

In fact, this year alone, Warren Buffet, who had consistently trailed below Bill Gates in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has finally surpassed Bill Gates.

With an extraordinary $18.7 billion increase in his net worth this year, the largest for anyone in 2025, Buffett has secured the sixth spot on the list with a fortune of $161 billion — edging past Gates by $1 billion.

But how did Buffet did it? The investment guru’s rise has been, in fact, been fuelled by a 13% surge in Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A shares, a stark contrast to the 8% decline in Microsoft stock that has limited Gates’ wealth increase to just $1.3 billion.

Amid growing recession fears and inflationary pressures under the new Trump administration, investors have shown renewed interest in conservatively valued stocks like Berkshire, steering clear of riskier technology stocks.

In fact, one can say that Berkshire’s strategic moves reflect Buffett’s characteristic long-term thinking. The company nearly doubled its cash reserves, Treasury bills, and other liquid assets to $334 billion last year, while selling a net $134 billion in equities. Share buybacks, which have been a hallmark of Buffett’s strategy, were sharply reduced to under $3 billion, with no repurchases in the latter half of the year.