Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway chairman; replacement named

Billionaire businessman Warren Buffett is stepping down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway after spending more than six decades leading the company.

Buffett, 96, will immediately become chairman emeritus of Berkshire Hathaway, the $1 trillion conglomerate announced Friday. He will also remain a director of the company.

Howard Buffett, Warren’s 71-year-old son, was named as his replacement to chair the company. Howard has been on the Berkshire Hathaway board since 1993 and is part of a long-planned succession plan.

The Associated Press reports Greg Abel, who took over as CEO of the Berkshire Hathaway at the beginning of this year, will remain in his role. Warren Buffett reportedly still came into the office every day to look for new investments and deals and offer Abel advice.

Buffett first took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 when it was a struggling New England textile company. He became chairman in 1970 and grew the business into one of the largest Fortune 500 companies with multiple assets, including Geico, Dairy Queen, Duracell, BNSF Railway, McLane Company, Benjamin Moore & Co. and See’s Candies.

“I have served Berkshire since 1965,” Buffett said in a letter to shareholders. “Sixty-plus years in, I still have the best job in the world. That is not something many people my age can say, and I have never felt better about what comes next.”

He added that he is confident with Abel and his son Howard leading Berkshire Hathaway into the future.

“Greg runs the company; Howard will guard its culture and values – both worth more than anything on our balance sheet,” he said. “Think of Howard as a policy the shareholders own and hope never to claim against.”

According to the AP, Buffett took a deliberate approach to Berkshire Hathaway’s succession plans and has carried out the transition step by step.

“Buffett seems to have understood that succeeding him wasn’t just about finding another extraordinary leader,” said Michael Withers, professor of management at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. “It was about building a structure that could preserve what makes Berkshire different long after he has stepped away. The test moving forward will be whether Abel and Howard can honor that legacy while still giving Berkshire room to adapt to a market that looks very different from the one Buffett mastered.”

Buffett’s fortune has been amassed through Berkshire Hathaway stock. Buffett built the company into an investing conglomerate and an icon of Wall Street by buying insurance companies and reinvesting the money from premiums in stocks and other companies. In 2024, Berkshire Hathaway became the first non-tech companies valued at more than $1 trillion.

Buffett, a longtime philanthropist, has given away roughly $66 billion worth of stock since 2006 with the bulk of that going to his friend Bill Gates’ foundation. But this summer he announced that his three children will now take over all of the charitable decisions and distribute the rest of his fortune by the end of 2035.

Buffett’s take on finance has created its own gravitational pull. When Berkshire Hathaway reveals the stocks that the company has acquired or sold in public disclosures, it can shake markets.

During his time as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, the company nearly doubled the returns of the S&P 500, with a 19.9% compounded annual growth rate compared with the index’s 10.4% gain.

“Warren’s impact on Berkshire and its owners is without parallel in the history of American business,” Abel said in a prepared statement. “The culture Warren built and the values he championed will remain at the heart of Berkshire, and Howard will be their guardian.”

Shares of Berkshire Hathaway dipped slightly after the market opened Friday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.