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Warren Buffett takes next step in long-term plan to ensure Berkshire doesn't stray after he's gone
Warren Buffett is taking a third major step in his multi-year plan to gradually step away from Berkshire Hathaway, the formerly troubled Massachusetts textile manufacturer he took control of in 1965 and lovingly built over six decades into one of the world's most valuable companies.
But even after just turning 96, he is still not leaving altogether, as he continues to do everything he can to make sure Berkshire retains the core values he built into it even after he does say goodbye for good.
First, over many years, he allowed Berkshire veteran Greg Abel, the CEO-designate, to handle Berkshire's many operating companies.
Then, in May of 2025, he announced he would step down as CEO at the end of the year but remain chairman, with Abel taking over as chief executive.
Now, as we reported in a special edition of the newsletter Friday morning, he is stepping down as chairman but will remain on the company's board of directors as "chairman emeritus" to "continue to offer his valued judgment and perspective."
And, very importantly, "consistent with the company's long-standing succession plan," his son, Howard, will become chairman.
As Buffett wrote in a letter to shareholders, Howard's primary responsibility will be to "guard [Berkshire's] culture and values – both worth more than anything on our balance sheet."
Both the company's news release, and Buffett's attached letter to shareholders, stress the continuity represented by having Buffett's son as chairman of the board.
Abel is quoted as saying, "The culture Warren built and the values he championed will remain at the heart of Berkshire, and Howard will be their guardian."
Buffett notes his son has been a director for 33 years. "Think of Howard as a policy the shareholders own and hope never to claim against."
As CNBC's Becky Quick put it in her "Squawk Box" breaking news report Friday morning, Buffett "has always talked about Berkshire Hathaway like another one of his children, and making sure it's in the right hands has been one of the most important decisions I think he's ever made."
Since Abel took over as CEO, both he and Buffett have made of point of saying Buffett still comes into the office five days a week and the two talk with each other at least every few days.
Many on Wall Street believed Abel was responsible for Berkshire's now $37 billion investment in Alphabet's AI ambitions, but in July, Buffett told CNBC he was the one who initiated it, with Abel's approval.
"I am not doing anything that [Abel] doesn't approve of. He's not doing anything I don't approve of. We talk all the time... but he is the decider."
We don't yet know whether today's announcement signals a change in that relationship, with Buffett taking an even more passive role, or if he will still be as active, just with a different title.
Buffett did say in his letter he still has "the best job in the world" and has "never felt better about what comes next."
"It was always a matter of when, not if. Buffett has made a graceful exit," Annex Wealth Management's Brian Jacobsen tells Reuters.
"This feels more like the completion of a carefully planned succession than a sudden changing of the guard."
Who is Howard Buffett?
While we've long known Warren Buffett planned to have his son, Howard, who prefers to be known as "Howie," succeed him as Berkshire Hathaway's chairman, he is not nearly as well-known as his father.
That prompted several major news organizations to run profiles of him and his "eclectic background," as Bloomberg describes it.
The New York Times says he attended three colleges without graduating from any of them before he started running a 400-acre farm north of Omaha in 1986 that he continues to operate, along with a 1500-acre farm in Illinois.
He has been involved with law enforcement, serving as a county sheriff for over a year starting in 2017 after completing what Reuters described at the time as "more than 3,300 hours of patrol and training, [with] 76 weapons qualifications including Tasers, handguns, rifles and shotguns."
Howard Buffett, like his father, is a major philanthropist. His foundation, which receives a donation each year from Warren Buffett, gave away $700 million last year, focusing on food security, conflict mitigation, and countering human trafficking, Barron's reports quoting the group's annual report.
Ukraine has been a major beneficiary, receiving around $350 million in 2025 and a total of $1.1 billion since Russia's invasion in 2022.
He has traveled to the country, telling CNBC in 2022 he had "never quite seen anything like this in my lifetime."
While Howard is not a typical businessperson, The Wall Street Journal notes he is "no stranger to corporate boards," having served as a director for Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Enterprises, and ConAgra Foods, among others.
But, says the Journal, his main qualification to be Berkshire's chairman is that "his father is Warren Buffett."
It quotes Buffett telling the newspaper in 2025, "He is getting it because he is my son."
In that article, Howard said of eventually becoming chairman, "I feel I'm prepared for it because [Warren] prepared me. That's a lot of years of influence and a lot of years of teaching."
"When the time comes, I'm ready to do it. But that's how I am. I've gone through most of my life doing things that I wasn't sure exactly how to do."
Berkshire shares undisturbed ... now
Wall Street apparently does not anticipate the announcement will have a major effect on the company's prospects, at least for now.
Both the Class A and Class B shares initially fell in early trading Friday but then recovered to end nearly unchanged on the day.
That may be because what's been called the "Buffett Premium" has already faded.
Berkshire shares are down more than 5% since his announcement in May of last year that he planned to step down as CEO at the end of 2025. That's well behind the S&P 500's gain of more than 34%.
And since the beginning of this year, Berkshire's B shares are underperforming the benchmark by more than 10 percentage points.
BUFFETT & BERKSHIRE AROUND THE INTERNET
- Associated Press: Warren Buffett gives up chairman title at Berkshire Hathaway in the next step of his succession plan
- Associated Press video: Warren Buffett steps down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway after more than 50 years
- Bloomberg (subscription): Buffett Steps Down as Berkshire Chair, Ending Six-Decade Run
- Bloomberg Television: Warren Buffett Steps Down as Berkshire Hathaway Chairman
- Yahoo Finance video: End of an era: Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway chairman
- The Chronicle of Philanthropy: A look at Warren Buffett's giving as he steps down
- The Wall Street Journal (subscription): Warren Buffett Steps Down as Berkshire Hathaway Chairman
- The Wall Street Journal (subscription): What Warren Buffett Learned From His Biggest Hits—and Misses
- Barron's on MSN: Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway chairman. Here's his final message.
- Barron's (subscription): How Will Berkshire Equities Be Run Without Warren Buffett?
- CBS News video: Warren Buffett stepping aside as Berkshire Hathaway chairman
HIGHLIGHTS FROM CNBC'S BUFFETT ARCHIVE
Berkshire's culture is 'self-reinforcing' (2015)
Warren Buffett explains why he's confident that Berkshire's culture is so "deeply embedded" that it will continue long after he and Charlie Munger are gone.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: How can we, as outside investors, judge the state of Berkshire's culture long after you depart from the company?
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I think it's fair that you do, you know, come with a questioning mind to the culture, post-me and Charlie, but I think you're going to be very — I don't think you should be surprised, but I think you will be very pleased with the outcome...
It's a vital part of Berkshire to have a clearly defined, deeply embedded culture that pervades the parent company, the subsidiary companies. It's even reflected in our shareholders.
And, you know, when you have 97 percent of the shareholders vote and say we don't want a dividend, I don't think there's another company like that in the world.
So we have a — our directors sign on for it and, there again, we behave consistently. Instead of having a bunch of directors who are — love to be a director because they'd like to get $2- or $300,000 a year for showing up four times a year, we have directors who look at it as a great opportunity for stewardship, and who want their ownership, and have their ownership, represented by buying stock in the market, exactly like you do.
So we — it's — we try to make clear and define that culture in every way possible, and it's gotten reinforced over the years to an extreme degree.
People who join us believe in it; people who shun us don't believe in it, so we — it's self-reinforcing.
And I think it's a virtual certainty to continue and to become even stronger, because once Charlie and I aren't around, it will be so clear that it's not the force of personality, but it's the — it's institutionalized that, you know, nobody will doubt that it will really continue for decades and decades and decades to come.
BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH
Berkshire market capitalization: $1,090,754,504,023
Berkshire Cash as of June 30: $365.5 billion (Down 8.0% from March 31)
Excluding Rail Cash and Subtracting T-Bills Payable: $359.2 billion (Down 3.8% from March 31)
Berkshire repurchased $4.5 billion of its shares in Q2 2026.
BERKSHIRE'S TOP EQUITY HOLDINGS - Sep. 18, 2026
Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly traded stocks in the U.S. and Japan, by market value, based on the latest closing prices.
Holdings are as of June 30, 2026, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway's 13F filing on August 14, 2026, except for:
- Mitsubishi, which is as of April 30, 2026
The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at [email protected]. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)
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Also, Buffett's annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There are collected here on Berkshire's website.
-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch