![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/HHDVW366C5EQJEFN7A2W7FWEXE.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
FILE – Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, speaks during a game of bridge following the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting May 5, 2019, in Omaha, Neb.<\/p>\n
Nati Harnik \/ AP<\/p>\n
Warren Buffett is stepping down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway<\/a> in the next step of the transition at the top of the $1 trillion conglomerate he led for more than six decades.<\/p>\n Buffett, 96, will become chairman emeritus and will take on his new role immediately, the company said Friday. His son, Howard, will become Berkshire Hathaway\u2019s new chairman, part of a long-planned succession. Howard Buffett has been on the Berkshire Hathaway board since 1993.<\/p>\n Warren Buffett, known by a legion of financial market followers as the Oracle of Omaha,<\/a> will remain a director. He had been Berkshire Hathaway\u2019s chairman since 1970, but he took control of the struggling New England textile company in 1965.<\/p>\n Greg Abel took over for Buffett as the CEO of the $1 trillion conglomerate at the start of this year though Buffett continued to come into the office each day to look for new investments and deals and offer Abel any advice. It\u2019s not clear whether Buffett will change his routine at all now.<\/p>\n \u201cI have served Berkshire since 1965,\u201d Buffett said in a letter to shareholders. \u201cSixty-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.\u201d<\/p>\n Investor Adam Mead, who wrote \u201cThe Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway,\u201d said Buffett seems to trying to lessen the impact on Berkshire when he eventually dies by taking this step now. Berkshire\u2019s announcement didn\u2019t reveal any health issues for Buffett, but Mead said \u201cHe\u2019s now 96, so even a cold could be a health scare.\u201d<\/p>\n Greg Abel will continue as CEO with Howard Buffett becoming chairman<\/p>\n Buffett<\/a> said that he is confident with Abel<\/a> and his son Howard leading Berkshire Hathaway.<\/p>\n \u201cGreg runs the company; Howard will guard its culture and values \u2013 both worth more than anything on our balance sheet,\u201d he said. \u201cThink of Howard as a policy the shareholders own and hope never to claim against.\u201d <\/p>\n Abel started managing all of Berkshire\u2019s non-insurance businesses in 2018 when he was elevated to vice chairman, so he knows the various companies well including BNSF railroad, the utilities and manufacturing operations as well as name brands like Dairy Queen and See\u2019s Candy. But CFRA Research analyst Cathy Seifert said investors still have questions about how well Abel will be able to deploy Berkshire\u2019s massive $365 billion cash pile<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a premium awarded Berkshire stock because of their financial strengths and because of this famed investor who was allocating capital. I think it\u2019s naive to assume that this is business as usual. It\u2019s not,\u201d Seifert said. \u201cWhat this does is amplify some of the execution risk in the strategy and the significance of the transition.\u201d<\/p>\n The next orderly step in Warren Buffett\u2019s succession plan <\/p>\n Michael Withers, professor of management at the University of Notre Dame\u2019s Mendoza College of Business, said Buffett took a deliberate approach to Berkshire Hathaway\u2019s succession plans and has carried out the transition step by step.<\/p>\n \u201cBuffett seems to have understood that succeeding him wasn\u2019t just about finding another extraordinary leader,\u201d he said. \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Buffett\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n