Warren Buffett Has Created a $1.5 Trillion Question for His Successor

Berkshire Hathaway's next CEO has huge shoes to fill — and a mountain of cash to invest.

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Surprising people at the age of 94 is no mean feat. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has retained that capacity. As Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting on May 3 drew to a close, Mr. Buffett announced that he would be stepping down as chief executive of the sprawling conglomerate.

The move will come at the end of 2025, after six decades in charge. Mr. Buffett had been preparing for his own departure. But he said he did not give most of Berkshire's directors advance notice of his announcement. Nor did he tell Mr. Greg Abel, his presumptive successor.

Berkshire Hathaway was a textile manufacturer when Mr. Buffett bought the company in 1965. In the years that followed he turned it into an immense insurance firm and a conglomerate with interests in everything from energy to candy.

He deployed a value-investing strategy — seeking out companies which appeared to be cheap relative to their intrinsic value. Between 1965 and the end of 2024, Berkshire's market value had risen by more than 5,500,000 percent, with a compounded annual return of almost 20 percent. The total return of the S&P 500 index over that period was 39,000 percent.