Warren Buffett leaves the Berkshire chair to his son after six decades

Berkshire Hathaway said on Friday that Warren E. Buffett has left the chairmanship he has held since 1970 and will serve as chairman emeritus. The board elected his son, Howard G. Buffett, as chairman the same day. The change took effect immediately.

Buffett, 96, stays on the board. Susan L. Decker remains lead independent director. Greg Abel, who became chief executive at the start of 2026, keeps day-to-day control of the company. The split of roles is the one Berkshire has described for years: Abel runs the businesses, Howard guards the culture, and Warren remains available for judgment.

In a letter to shareholders released with the announcement, Buffett wrote: “Father Time always wins. He has, however, been generous with me.” He added that Abel “has been making the decisions that matter for some time now, and I have not had to think twice about any of them.” The letter said the timing was right to finish the transition.

What changed on Friday, and what did not

The chairmanship is the last of the two top titles Buffett held after he handed the chief executive job to Abel nine months ago. He first told shareholders at the May 2025 annual meeting that he would step away as CEO. He kept the board gavel then. Friday closes that sequence.

Howard Buffett has sat on the Berkshire board since 1993. He is 71. He is not taking an operating post. His public work has been elsewhere: he has chaired the Howard G. Buffett Foundation since 1999, with a focus on food security and conflict, and he served for nearly a decade as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador Against Hunger for the World Food Programme.

Abel, speaking for the board, said Warren’s effect on Berkshire and its owners “is without parallel in the history of American business” and that Howard would be the guardian of the culture and values. That sentence is the job description. Berkshire’s model has been to leave operating companies alone unless capital or people need a decision from Omaha. Abel is widely described as more willing than Buffett was to press managers when results slip. Howard’s brief is to keep that model from drifting, not to pick stocks.

The company Buffett built, in numbers

Berkshire is now valued at about $1.1 trillion. Buffett took control in 1965, when it was a failing New England textile mill. The group now owns Geico, BNSF Railway, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom and a long list of other operating firms, plus a large equity portfolio. CNBC put the compounded annual return under Buffett at 19.7 percent, close to double the S&P 500 over the same span.

Bloomberg places Buffett’s personal fortune near $145 billion. The headquarters is still the modest suite at Blackstone Plaza, the former Kiewit Plaza, at 3555 Farnam Street in Omaha. At the end of 2024 the corporate office employed 27 people. The rest of Berkshire’s roughly 400,000 workers sit inside the subsidiaries.

The succession plan has been public for more than a decade. Howard was always the intended non-executive chair. Abel was named the successor CEO after Charlie Munger died in 2023 and after Buffett confirmed the choice at the 2025 meeting. Friday is the last title change that plan required.

Why the chair still matters

Berkshire’s board does not run the railroad or the insurer. It sets the terms under which Abel can allocate capital, buy and sell businesses, and keep or fire managers. The chair sets the tone of that board. Buffett’s presence as chairman emeritus and director means he can still speak in the room. It also means the market can no longer treat the chair as a synonym for Buffett.

That distinction will show first in capital allocation. Berkshire has sat on a large cash pile while equity prices stayed high and while large acquisitions proved scarce. Abel now has the formal authority and the chair is a family member whose stated duty is culture, not deal-making. Investors who bought Berkshire as a vehicle for Buffett’s judgment will have to judge Abel on the next large purchase or the next decision to return cash.

Howard’s other life also sits in the background. The foundation work on food and conflict is not a Berkshire business. It does tell shareholders what kind of steward the new chair has been outside the company: patient, field-oriented, and unused to quarterly theatre. That is closer to his father’s public style than to a conventional corporate chair.

Buffett wrote that he is more confident than ever about what lies ahead. The test of that sentence is not the letter. It is whether Berkshire still compounds capital at a rate that makes the culture worth guarding once the man who built it is no longer in the chair.