Warren Buffett may be retired, but Wall Street is still hanging on every word

Some people retire. Others just stop updating their LinkedIn.

Warren Buffett may have handed Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO title to Greg Abel, but judging by his latest interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick, the Oracle of Omaha isn’t exactly ready to fade into the background.

He’s hardly the first high-profile figure to keep one foot in the game after stepping down. Tom Brady still shapes the NFL from the broadcast booth and as part-owner of the Raiders. Barack Obama remains one of the Democratic Party’s most influential figures. Howard Schultz and Bob Iger couldn’t seem to stay away from Starbucks and Disney, respectively. It can be tough for the greats to stand down entirely.

Buffett’s comments on Wednesday were wide-ranging, and featured everything from commentary on past investments to wistful looks at the past. Here are the greatest hits from the interview:

He led Berkshire’s investment in Alphabet

Alphabet’s reputation in the stock market precedes itself at this point. The company stormed the gates of the AI trade near the end of 2025 and has been dominating pretty much ever since. It’s by far the best performer in the Magnificent 7 over the past year, having more than doubled over the period.

Berkshire started building a sizable stake in the third quarter of 2025 that it’s continued adding to since. Although the exact timing of the investment isn’t known, Alphabet won a landmark court ruling in early September 2025, which removed a major overhang and freed the company up to pursue AI. Shares are up 74% since then.

“I initiated,” Buffett said, adding that he didn’t make any decisions that Greg Abel — his successor at Berkshire — didn’t approve of, and vice versa.

Buffett actually lamented not getting into Alphabet even sooner: “I made a mistake … I think they’re more likely to be a winner based on their record than probably 90% or 95% of what gets merchandised through Wall Street.”

He doesn’t like the speculative investing behavior he sees

Back in May, at the Berkshire Annual Meeting, Berkshire called markets a “church with a casino attached,” singling out one-day options as “gambling.”

He doubled down on those comments on Wednesday, saying, “it’s tough to find values when everybody is preferring gambling.”

Buffett also had a wry take on the firms facilitating speculative investing.

“Since humans love to gamble so much, there’s more money [in] actually cultivating gamblers than there [is] cultivating investors,” he said.

He likes Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair

Warsh has hit the ground running with a mission to tackle inflation, and Buffett likes what he’s hearing, calling him a “good choice.”

“I think he will do the best he can at achieving the job he was assigned to do, which is 2% inflation and maintaining maximum employment,” Buffett said.

So far Warsh has been more of a traditional inflation hawk than many expected when Trump appointed him. We’ll get the latest guidance from the central bank at the next FOMC meeting at the end of July.

He discussed his dealings with Bill Gates

Buffett — who has historically been a major benefactor of the Gates Foundation — instead spread this year’s donations across four family-linked foundations, a move that came as questions swirled about Bill Gates’ ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

In Wednesday’s interview, Buffett said that he’d “read a great deal” about Gates’ ties to Epstein, and that while it was a “distasteful” situation, everyone makes mistakes in judging people.

“No one bats a thousand in the business of choosing people,” Buffett added.