Warren Buffett steps down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

By Chris Isidore, CNN

(CNN) — Warren Buffett, who ended his decades-long tenure as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of last year, is giving up the chairman post he has held since 1970.

Buffett, 96, will remain on the board to serve as chairman emeritus. His son Howard, a board member since 1993, will take over the role as chairman.

Known as the “Oracle of Omaha,” Buffett built Berkshire into one of the world’s most valuable companies using his theory of value investing, greatly outperforming the broader market. He also became the world’s 10th richest person and one of the most generous philanthropists. Today, he has a net worth of $145 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.

Shares of Berkshire (BRK.A) were little changed on the news.

In a letter to Berkshire shareholders Friday, Buffett said that he is stepping aside partly because CEO Greg Abel has exceeded his expectations. But he also acknowledged his own age in the letter, mentioning that his great-grandson, who just turned one, is “moving a bit faster than I am these days.”

“Father Time always wins,” he wrote. “He has, however, been generous with me. He has given me the opportunity to see Berkshire reach a point where I am more confident than ever about what lies ahead.”

Buffett’s successor Abel praised him, saying in a statement Friday: “Warren’s impact on Berkshire and its owners is without parallel in the history of American business.”

Buffett made substantial charitable donations during his lifetime. In 2010, he and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, along with Gates’ then-wife Melinda French Gates, founded the “The Giving Pledge.” The goal was to ask the world’s wealthiest people agree to donate at least half their wealth, either during their lives or upon their deaths.

But Buffett announced earlier this year he had stopped giving Berkshire shares to the Gates Foundation and was no longer talking to his former close friend Bill Gates, amid revelations about Gates’ ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Buffett’s will stipulates than more than 99% of his wealth at the time of his death is to be distributed to various charities, he wrote in a 2025 letter to shareholders. The value of received donations by that time totaled $60 billion.

Buffett was notable for a modest lifestyle, despite his wealth. He lived most of his life in the same home in Omaha, Nebraska, that he purchased in 1958 for $31,500.

Buffett disclosed in April 2012 that he was suffering from prostate cancer but that it was the least serious stage of the disease. He completed his radiation treatment in September that year and remained at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway for another 13 years.

During his life, Buffett became a prominent advocate for higher taxes on the richest Americans, arguing it was wrong that he owed a lower percentage of his income in taxes than his secretary and other middle-class taxpayers. The so-called Buffett Rule, which would have imposed a minimum 30% effective tax rate on people earning more than $1 million a year, became a talking point in President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, although it was defeated by Republicans in the Senate.

Buffett started his career in 1951 as a salesman for Buffett, Falk, & Co., his father’s investment firm. After a brief stint as a security analyst at Graham-Newman Corp. in New York, he returned to Omaha and started his own investment firm in 1956. In 1962, he began buying stock in Berkshire Hathaway, then a struggling textile manufacturer in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

He acquired a controlling share of the firm in 1965, and four years later dissolved his investment firm and turned Berkshire into his primary investment vehicle.

Berkshire grew to be a hugely successful and diversified company, owning insurer GEICO, freight railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe, clothing-maker Fruit of the Loom and ice cream chain Dairy Queen. Over Buffett’s tenure, Berkshire’s market value grew by an average annual rate of 19%, greatly outpacing the broader market.

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