Warren Buffett to Step Down From Berkshire Hathaway

Closeup of Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, listening to a question during a television interview at Smith & Wollensky restaurant in New York, September 8, 2015 — (Image credit: Chris Goodney/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

There were no bells, no whistles, only two cans of Coca-Cola and a box of See's Candies. "I think the time has arrived," he said, "where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year-end."

That's how Warren Buffett announced his succession plan, in a folksy, offhand way – and for practical reasons – at the end of a five-hour Q-and-A session with shareholders at the Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) annual meeting in Omaha on Saturday.

"Greg" is Greg Abel, the 62-year-old chairman and CEO of Berkshire Energy and vice-chairman of Berkshire's non-insurance operations.

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Abel, who was designated CEO successor in 2021 and first joined Buffett and Charlie Munger on the stage at a Berkshire annual meeting in 2022, was there again on Saturday to learn of his promotion in real time.

As Buffett explained, two of Berkshire's 11 directors – his children, Howie and Susie – knew of his plan. "The rest of them, this will come as news to," he explained before he put a date on Abel's elevation to CEO.

On Sunday, as the Oracle of Omaha foretold, Berkshire's board of directors voted unanimously to appoint Abel president and CEO effective January 1, 2026.

Abel, from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, started his career as a chartered accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers in San Francisco. In 1992, he joined geothermal electricity producer CalEnergy.

In 1999, CalEnergy acquired MidAmerican Energy and took its name.

Berkshire acquired MidAmerican later that year. Abel became CEO of MidAmerican in 2008, and the company was renamed Berkshire Hathaway Energy in 2014.

Buffett, the largest Berkshire shareholder with holdings worth approximately $160 billion, will remain chairman of the board.

As he explained on Saturday, he'll "hang around" to help, but Abel will have final say on operations and capital deployment. "I could be helpful, I believe, if we ran into periods of great opportunity or anything."

Buffett said he won't sell any Berkshire shares as part of his transition into a new role.

"The decision to keep every share is an economic decision," he added, "because I think the prospects of Berkshire will be better under Greg’s management than mine.

"It's working way better with Greg than with me because, you know, I didn’t want to work as hard as he works. I could get away with it because we've got a basically good business, very good business."

David Dittman is the former managing editor and chief investment strategist of Utility Forecaster, which was named one of "10 investment newsletters to read besides Buffett's" in 2015. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, and the Villanova University School of Law, and a former stockbroker, David has been working in financial media for more than 20 years.