Warren Buffett has stepped down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, handing the role to his son Howard in an immediate transition the 96-year-old investor attributed to age, saying: ‘Father Time always wins.’
The move, announced on Friday, makes Warren Buffett Berkshire chairman emeritus. He will remain on the board as a director.
Howard Buffett, 71, takes over as chairman under a long-standing succession plan. He has served as a Berkshire director for 33 years.
‘Greg runs the company; Howard will guard its culture and values, both worth more than anything on our balance sheet,’ Warren Buffett wrote in a letter to shareholders. ‘Think of Howard as a policy the shareholders own and hope never to claim against.’
Warren Buffett Berkshire chairman role passes without warning
The departure from the chairmanship is more abrupt than Buffett’s earlier handover of the chief executive post. In January, he officially relinquished the CEO job to Greg Abel after six decades at the helm, following his announcement of the change in May 2025. The chairman transition, by contrast, is effective immediately.
Susan Decker stays on as lead independent director.
In his letter to shareholders, Buffett reflected on his age. He noted that one of his great-grandchildren had just turned one and is ‘moving a bit faster than I am these days.’
‘Serving as your Chairman has been the privilege of a lifetime, and I have never taken your trust for granted,’ he wrote.
Berkshire’s class B shares dipped 0.3% on Friday. They are up 1% so far this year, well behind the S&P 500’s 11.5% year-to-date gain, as investors have cooled on the stock while chasing the artificial intelligence trade.
Abel’s early deals signal a new direction for Berkshire
Buffett used the announcement to praise Abel’s record since taking the CEO role. Abel, he said, had assumed the job ‘in every respect’ and was calling the shots without second-guessing from Buffett.
Abel has already begun deploying Berkshire’s large cash pile. Earlier this year he bought $10 billion of shares in Google parent Alphabet. He also struck a deal to acquire homebuilder Taylor Morrison for a total enterprise value of $8.5 billion.
According to the Des Moines Register, Berkshire agreed on Sunday 31 May to pay $72.50 per share for Taylor Morrison, a 24% premium over the Scottsdale, Arizona-based company’s closing price of $58.50.
Abel’s ties to Berkshire run deep. According to CNBC, he first joined the conglomerate in 1999 when Berkshire acquired a controlling stake in MidAmerican Energy, where Abel was an executive. He was named to the Berkshire board in 2018.
‘With Abel firmly in charge, now is the right time to “complete the transition,”‘ Buffett explained.
Buffett’s fortune and his children’s philanthropic role
Howard and his two siblings are also responsible for distributing their father’s wealth, listed at $145 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Rather than a single overarching plan, Buffett is channelling most of his remaining fortune to his three children’s charitable foundations, which distribute about $500 million each year.
‘All three children now have the maturity, brains, energy and instincts to disburse a large fortune,’ Buffett wrote in a letter to shareholders released in November.
Howard has spoken publicly about the complexity of tackling poverty in conflict zones. ‘If you’re not addressing the real issue of rule of law then you just can’t have success,’ he told CNBC earlier this year.
Buffett said he looks forward to ‘remaining a shareholder alongside you’ after completing the handover. The Taylor Morrison acquisition, Berkshire’s largest deal under Abel’s leadership, is still to close.
