It is an anti-Trump or anti-musk that derives its professional bow, as its discretion contrasts with the outrageous of these ultra-rich. Even his departure, as sober as they are organized, can never inspire a successful series as “succession”. His designated successor, Greb Abel, will succeed him at the head of the group at the end of the year.
Nevertheless, this sobriety was mainly hiding an excellent efficiency. Guru of modern capitalism with legendary flair, the American investor Warren Buffett was formed over the decades the fifth world fortune thanks to a heterogeneous empire whose reins he will give in at the end of the year.
His group, Berkshire Hathaway, has become the eighth market capitalization in the world, exceeding a thousand billion dollars in Wall Street, a first for an American group outside the tech sector.
This conglomerate has dozens of companies (from Duracell batteries to the American insurer Geico) and actions in carefully selected companies, from Coca-Cola to Bank of America, via Chevron or American Express.
All his life, Warren Buffett, always good foot well at 94 years, preferred to invest in the long term in stable companies whose accounts he peeled. A strategy that earned his company, since he took control in 1965, an annual return almost twice as important as that of the S&P 500 stock market index.
A simple lifestyle (if not the private jet)
No eccentricity either in the daily life of “the Oracle of Omaha”, which displays according to Forbes a fortune of $ 168 billion – one of the only ones who continued to increase since the return to power of Donald Trump in January.
Regular customer of McDonald’s, the legend makes him an inveterate Coca-Cola drinker, who has lived in the same house since 1958, bought 31,500 dollars, in his hometown of Omaha (Nebraska), in the center of the country.
His second wedding is sealed with two rings ended in a jewelry in her group. Its only known leisure activities: Bridge, Ukulele and Golf. However, he recognizes that having a private jet makes life easier for him.
60 billion donations to charitable works
Not provocative like Elon Musk, he does not try to conquer space like Jeff Bezos or change the world like Mark Zuckerberg.
The discretion of this claimed democrat, who complains of not paying enough taxes, does not prevent him from distilling clear opinions on the economy and some spikes on bitcoin, artificial intelligence or the trade war launched by Donald Trump.
Each year, thousands of small investors flock to listen to it at the General Assembly of Berkshire, designated as the “Woodstock” of the capitalists.
With his great friend, the founder of Microsoft Bill Gates, he launched in 2010 “The Giving Pledge”, a club of billionaires ready to give at least half of their fortune to charitable associations.
During his life, he donated some $ 60 billion – a record – including 43 billion at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2024, he announced that his fortune would be bequeathed to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named after his deceased first woman, and to the three foundations led by his children.
Early genius of finance
Born on August 30, 1930 in a middle -class family, Warren Buffett embarked on the markets at 11 years old. He is 13 years old when he had to fill a tax sheet for the first time after his first stock market gains.
He plans to abandon his studies, but faced with the veto of his father, a broker who became a parliamentary, he entered the business school in Wharton in Pennsylvania and then joined the University of Nebraska. Failed by Harvard, he joined Columbia University in New York.
He began his career in Wall Street but founded his investment company in 1956, Buffett Partnership, merged in 1965 with the Berkshire Hathaway textile group. With his acolyte Charlie Munger, who died in 2023 at 99, he transformed Berkshire into a gigantic conglomerate.
This father remarried by three children, eagerly reader of the financial and generalist press, stripped himself to find companies and values undervalued in his eyes and to wait until they are improving.
Old American economy
This does not prevent him from establishing very remunerative agreements, as when he comes to bail out Goldman Sachs in 2008 or Bank of America in 2011. His investments are rather in the old American economy. Apple is one of the few technological values to find thanks to its eyes. After having invested massively since 2016, Berkshire had liquidated half of his shares in the summer of 2024 for $ 50 billion.
Under his tunes as a gentleman hides a ruthless businessman. White hair, large glasses, often in a classic suit cut by a colored tie, it can still discuss long without showing any sign of fatigue. At AG 2024 of the group, he recognized his fatal character for the first time, launching the shareholders: “I hope you will be there next year … and me too!”
