Berkshire Hathaway Inc. announced that Warren E. Buffett has officially resigned as Chairman of the Board, ending his historic 56-year tenure in the position he held since 1970. According to reports from NPR, Business Standard, The Economic Times, Upstox News Desk, Goodreturns, ET Now, Zee News, and Yahoo Finance, this transition represents a significant milestone in the company's succession planning process. As Chairman Emeritus, Buffett will remain a member of the Board of Directors and continue to offer his valued judgment and perspective in his new role. The 96-year-old Buffett will take on his new role immediately following this official resignation. In a letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett wrote, "I have served Berkshire since 1965. Sixty-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." Buffett acknowledged the passage of time, writing "Father Time always wins," while expressing gratitude for the opportunity to see Berkshire reach a point where he is "more confident than ever about what lies ahead."
The Board has elected Howard G. Buffett, a Berkshire director since 1993, as Chairman of the Board. As reported by NPR, Business Standard, The Economic Times, Upstox News Desk, Goodreturns, ET Now, Zee News, and Yahoo Finance, this appointment aligns with the company's long-standing succession plan and ensures continuity in leadership. Susan L. Decker will continue to serve as Lead Independent Director, maintaining her role in the company's governance structure. Howard Buffett, 71 years old, brings extensive experience to his new role, having served since 1999 as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which focuses on global food security and conflict mitigation. He has also served as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador Against Hunger for the World Food Programme for nearly a decade and held board positions at major companies including The Coca-Cola Company, ConAgra Foods, Agro Tech, Archer Daniels Midland, and Lindsay Corporation. Greg Abel remains as CEO, having taken over the role on January 1, 2025, following six decades at Berkshire's helm. Previously in May 2025, Buffett announced his decision to step down as CEO, stating he would remain a shareholder alongside other investors after stepping down as Chairman.
Howard Buffett, 71, is the second of Warren's three children and grew up in Omaha but never showed much interest in his father's world of stocks and balance sheets. As reported by The New York Times, Howard attended three colleges in the 1970s - Augustana College in Illinois, Chapman College in California, and the University of California at Irvine - without finishing a degree at any of them. In 1986, he began working a 400-acre farm north of Omaha that his father had purchased for him, with Warren building in an incentive that Howard would take a smaller cut of the farm's profits if he kept his weight below 182.5 pounds. Howard still farms today, running a 1,500-acre family property in central Illinois and continuing to operate the original Nebraska farm, according to Fortune. He also oversees foundation-run research farms that stretch across Arizona, Illinois and beyond, work tied to his long-running advocacy for no-till agriculture. Farming never boxed him in, as he took a vice president role at agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland, then resigned in 1995 over concerns about how the company handled price-fixing allegations. He later sat on boards of Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Enterprises, ConAgra Foods and Lindsay Corporation, among others, and worked in law enforcement as sheriff of Macon County, Illinois from 2017 to 2018.
The transition establishes clear roles for the new leadership structure, with Howard Buffett focusing on protecting the culture and values established by his father, while Greg Abel continues running the business operations. As reported by Upstox News Desk, Goodreturns, ET Now, and Yahoo Finance, Warren Buffett stated in his shareholder letter, "Greg runs the company; Howard will guard its culture and values." Greg Abel responded, "Warren's impact on Berkshire and its owners is without parallel in the history of American business. The culture Warren built and the values he championed will remain at the heart of Berkshire, and Howard will be their guardian." Buffett noted that Abel had exceeded his expectations and had been making the company's key decisions "for some time now," making the timing right to complete the transition. The division of responsibilities means Berkshire's day-to-day business leadership remains with Abel, while Howard takes on the board leadership role at a company where culture and decentralized management have long been central to operations. Howard has served on Berkshire's board since 1993, giving him 33 years of experience before stepping into the chairman's seat, which is longer than the apprenticeship Warren himself served before becoming Berkshire's chief executive at age 34.
Warren Buffett has issued a blunt warning about current market conditions, describing the current environment as "tough to find values when everybody is preferring gambling." According to The Economic Times, Buffett has made similar comments in recent months, describing the market as a church with a casino attached and stating he had never seen people in more of a gambling mood. The warning comes as the S&P 500's cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings (CAPE) ratio has climbed to about 41, approaching levels seen only during extreme market valuations. This compares to the long-term average of 17.8 over 155 years, with the only comparable extreme being the roughly 44 reading reached at the height of the dot-com bubble in 2000. Between 1965 and 2025, Berkshire Hathaway delivered an annual compound return of about 19.7%, significantly outperforming the S&P 500's 10.5% including dividends. Buffett's investment approach emphasizes economic moats, durable cash flows and businesses capable of compounding across market cycles, with attention to quality management teams and long-term holding periods that can weather difficult market years.
Berkshire Hathaway shares experienced a decline following the leadership announcement, with Class A shares closing Thursday at $763,936, down 2.10%, and Class B shares finishing at $509.20, a 2.04% drop. According to BeInCrypto and ET Now, this selling ran ahead of the official announcement, with Class B shares sitting at $509.22 in Friday pre-market trade, barely moved. The market reaction suggests investors are viewing this transition as a potential shift in the company's leadership dynamics, though the stock has been experiencing a broader decline that began before this year's slide. The elder Buffett, who turned 96 last month, had appeared in interviews with CNBC as recently as July, though his voice sounded weak of late. The announcement comes just eight months after Buffett stepped down as CEO of the conglomerate he built into a trillion-dollar company, with the company stating at that time that Buffett planned to hold onto the chairman title.
