Warren Buffett said in a Friday letter to shareholders that he is relinquishing the chairman role and moving to chairman emeritus, effective right away. He will continue to serve as a director, and his son, Howard Buffett, will take the chair.
"Father Time always wins," he wrote, adding, "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." The handoff arrives a bit over nine months after Greg Abel became CEO while Buffett kept the chair. Buffett had first revealed his plan to step down as CEO at the May 2025 annual meeting, surprising the thousands who attend what many call "Woodstock for Capitalists."
"The culture Warren built and the values he championed will remain at the heart of Berkshire, and Howard will be their guardian," Abel said in the company announcement.
Buffett wrote that Abel is running the business and that Howard will safeguard the company's culture and values, which he said matter more than any single line on the balance sheet. He likened Howard to an insurance policy shareholders own and hope they never need to use.
Berkshire's largest shareholder praised Abel's performance in the Friday letter: "My expectations for him were sky high from the start, and he has exceeded them." Buffett closed by saying, "The company is in excellent hands, and I look forward to remaining a shareholder alongside you."
Asked by CNBC for comment, Abel said Buffett has called his own role "the best job in the world," and that Buffett handed him an extraordinary responsibility with the freedom to lead in a way that fits Berkshire's culture. Abel added that he looks forward to continuing to work with Buffett, with Howard as Chairman and Sue as Lead Independent Director.
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Even this year, Buffett stayed closely involved. In March, Abel told CNBC that Buffett was still making it into Berkshire's Omaha office daily and that they spoke often. In May, Buffett attended the company's annual meeting, offered a few remarks from his seat, and sat for an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick. It marked the first such gathering overseen by Abel rather than Buffett.
In July, Buffett told CNBC he had spearheaded Berkshire's latest move into Alphabet, detailing a June deal to acquire $10 billion of privately placed shares that elevated Google's parent to the company's third‑largest holding, behind Apple and American Express. During that conversation, he also noted he'd suffered a leg fracture several weeks earlier and was recovering.
Buffett has acknowledged age-related limitations. In a Thanksgiving note to shareholders he wrote, "To my surprise, I generally feel good. Though I move slowly and read with increasing difficulty, I am at the office five days a week." In Friday's letter he added a wink to time passing: he had just celebrated his 96th birthday with family, including a great‑grandchild who turned one. "He's moving a bit faster than I am these days," Buffett wrote.
Buffett took control of a struggling New England textile mill at age 34 and over roughly six decades turned it into a diversified powerhouse based in Omaha, Nebraska. Today, Berkshire employs nearly 400,000 people and last year delivered operating earnings of $44.5 billion. Since 1965, Berkshire's shareholder returns have compounded at 19.7% annually, almost twice the S&P 500's pace over the same stretch.
This year has been tougher. Berkshire shares are up about 1% in 2026, while the S&P 500 is higher by more than 11%. A mix of rising oil prices and investors tilting toward higher growth areas has been a headwind, and many shareholders are waiting to see how Abel puts Berkshire's sizable cash to work. The company's cash pile stood at $365.5 billion, and repurchases picked up, totaling $4.5 billion in the second quarter.
Leadership changes at icons like Berkshire test whether the playbook outlives the coach. The culture handoff is clear: Abel is running operations, Howard is the culture backstop, and Buffett remains in the room as director and shareholder. Berkshire still has an enormous slate of businesses, a mountain of cash, and a history of patience that has beaten the market for decades. For everyday investors, the watch item now is simple: how that cash gets deployed and whether the returns keep compounding the way they have for generations.
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