In Warren Buffett’s final annual shareholders’ meeting as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, his parting message was one of optimism and patriotism for the country that made his career possible.
Buffett said he had informed his two children who serve on Berkshire’s board about his plans to retire in advance, but surprised the rest of his board, including his hand-picked successor Greg Abel sitting beside him on stage. Perhaps the news shouldn’t have caught anyone off guard, considering Buffett is 94 years old and has $168 billion to his name, almost all of it made up of stock in the company he built.
But his announcement came at the end of a five-hour Q&A session when the legendary investor was as sharp as ever, recalling decades-old events and regaling the audience of around 40,000 at CHI Health Center Omaha with stories and advice. There was one point he returned to again and again: there has never been a better time to be alive, in Buffett’s view, than right now, right here in the U.S.
“The luckiest day in my life is the day I was born, because I was born in the United States,” Buffett said. “If I were being born today I would just keep negotiating in the womb until they said you can be in the United States.”
That doesn’t mean he spared his beloved nation from any criticism. The first question of the day Saturday was about his view of tariffs and the idea of “import certificates” he proposed in 2003, and he made his opposition to the Trump administration’s approach clear, saying “trade should not be used as a weapon.” But he also said “you can make some very good arguments for the fact that balanced trade is good for the world.” His proposed solution would issue a certificate to each U.S. exporter in an amount equal to the dollar value of the goods they export, which could then be purchased by importers for the right to bring goods to the U.S. It would function as a different sort of tariff, but one that would be determined by the free market.
“It’s gimmicky, but it’s certainly a lot better than anything we’re talking about now,” Buffett said.
It was a fairly tame rebuke, and Buffett steered clear of expressing broad support or opposition to any particular politician, never mentioning Donald Trump by name. After endorsing many Democratic presidential candidates in the past, including Barack Obama during his two winning campaigns and Hillary Clinton in 2016, he stayed silent during the 2020 and 2024 campaigns. He hasn’t publicly denounced Trump, but hasn’t cozied up to him in the same vein as some of his centibillionaire peers, either.
His primary concern about the direction of the country is the threat of runaway inflation and a weakening currency due to fiscal policy, not trade policy. Buffett fears that there are no political disincentives to making expensive promises in exchange for votes, so governments have a natural tendency to debase their currencies over time, a habit he insisted is universal, not specific to the U.S. Faced with a question about whether Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is having a positive or negative effect on the long-term health of the country, he dodged addressing DOGE in specific terms, but opined that some form of the endeavor is a good idea when the U.S. is spending so much more than it’s bringing in.
“I wouldn’t want the job of trying to correct what’s going on in revenue and expenditures of the United States with roughly a 7% gap, when probably a 3% gap is sustainable,” Buffett said. “It’s a job I don’t want, but it’s a job I think should be done, and Congress does not seem good at doing it.”
That was about as pointed as his comments got, and even that answer ended on a high note, saying it was “the problem of the most successful country in the history of the world.” So it went all day, with any criticisms couched around a blanket of American exceptionalism.
“We have a revenue stream, a capital-producing stream, a brains-producing machine like the world has never seen,” Buffett added. “If you picked a way to screw it up, it would involve the currency.”
Currency concerns are also understandable for Buffett as the head of a company with a $347 billion cash pile, making up 30% of its total assets as of the end of the first quarter. It’s been a meteoric rise in cash since the beginning of 2022, when it had a mere $109 billion, piling up from operating earnings and sales of some of its public stockholdings. In 2024, Berkshire sold 600 million shares of Apple stock for more than $100 billion, holding onto 300 million shares now worth $62 million. At the start of Saturday’s meeting, Buffett introduced Apple’s CEO in the audience by saying “Tim Cook has made Berkshire a lot more money than I’ve ever made Berkshire,” a self-deprecating quip that was a blend of humor, humility and sincerity.
Buffett made no promises for when he might spend all that cash or what he might spend it on. When asked whether he was positioning Berkshire’s balance sheet for a smoother leadership transition, before he broke the news that transition was imminent, Buffett joked, “I wouldn’t do anything nearly so noble as to withhold investing myself just so Greg could look good later on.” He did say Berkshire came close to making a $10 billion acquisition in the first quarter but decided not to pull the trigger, and declined to elaborate when pressed for details. For now, he’s staying patient until the right time.
“We will be bombarded with opportunities that we’ll be glad we had the cash for,” Buffett predicted. “It’s very unlikely to happen tomorrow, but it’s not unlikely to happen in five years, and the probabilities get higher as you go along.”
As for the volatility of this year’s stock market, which fell 19% from February through April 8 before rebounding 14% since to recoup some of those losses, Buffett scoffed at investors’ anxieties. “What has happened in the last 30 to 45 days is really nothing. There’s been three times since we acquired Berkshire [in 1965] that Berkshire has gone down 50%,” he said. “If it makes a difference to you whether your stocks are down 15% or not, you need to get a somewhat different investment philosophy.”
Berkshire’s stock itself has been a winner this year, up 19% against a 3% drop for the S&P 500, continuing the company’s 60-year run of spectacular outperformance with Buffett in charge. Its compounded annual gain for 60 years from 1965 through 2024 was 19.9%, trouncing the S&P 500’s 10.4% annualized return. It’s no wonder that thousands of shareholders descend on Omaha every spring to worship Buffett, with many calling him a hero and role model before asking their questions.
Now, Abel will be tasked with sustaining that legacy. The 62-year-old Canadian joined Berkshire when it acquired MidAmerican Energy, which he was president of, in 1999. He ran the business that became Berkshire Hathaway Energy until he was named a vice chairman of Berkshire in 2018 with Ajit Jain, who oversees its insurance businesses. Abel personally owned a 1% stake in Berkshire Hathaway Energy which he sold to Berkshire in 2022 for $870 million before tax and has used some of the proceeds to build up his own stake in the parent company. He now owns about $185 million worth of Berkshire Hathaway shares. His base salary last year for his efforts was $21 million, far more than the $100,000 his boss has paid himself for decades.
Abel joined Buffett on stage Saturday, with Jain alongside them as well for the morning half of the Q&A. It was the second annual meeting since the death of Buffett’s longtime sharp-witted sidekick Charlie Munger, and Buffett quoted or referenced his late friend’s advice on several occasions, but also deferred more often to his successor.
Questions were directed at Abel this time about topics ranging from Berkshire’s capital allocation strategy and what its energy and utilities businesses are doing to mitigate climate change to what lessons he’s learned from Buffett. For that one, Abel reflected on Buffett’s attention to detail the first time they met in asking about MidAmerican Energy’s small amount of risk from derivatives contracts on its balance sheet. He helped shareholders get more comfortable with him, reflecting on his own qualities as a “teacher” and coach of his kids’ hockey and baseball teams. As for Berkshire’s cash hoard, which he will now be in charge of deploying, it doesn’t sound like he’ll deviate much from Buffett’s playbook.
“We do recognize it as a strategic asset, and it allows us to weather the difficult times and not be dependent on anybody,” Abel said, adding, “while we’re being patient, never underestimate the amount of reading and work that’s being done to be prepared to act quickly.”
Buffett’s folksy charm and investing prowess will be virtually impossible to match, but his shareholders will have to hope he is as good at picking a successor as he has been at making them money. Buffett said he will still be available to advise Abel, while he and Berkshire’s board will work out whether he will still have a formal role, but if Saturday was the last time he speaks to an audience of shareholders, he wanted to make sure they left with a healthy serving of gratitude.
“Don’t feel guilty about your good luck if you’ve got it,” Buffett said. “If there are 8 billion people in the world and 330 million in the United States, you’ve already won the game to a great degree. Just keep making the most of it.”
Read the full article here
