Warren Buffett has stepped down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate he built from a failing textile mill into a trillion-dollar empire, the company announced Friday. Buffett, 96, becomes chairman emeritus effective immediately and will remain on the board of directors, while his son, Howard G. Buffett, was elected to succeed him as chairman of the board.

The move caps roughly 60 years at the helm of Berkshire for Buffett, who first invested in the company in 1962 and became its chairman in 1970. It arrives eight months after he handed the chief executive title to longtime lieutenant Greg Abel, who continues to run the company's insurance, energy, rail and manufacturing operations day to day, according to NBC News.

A Long-Planned Handoff

In a letter to shareholders released alongside the announcement, Buffett said the timing reflected confidence in Abel's performance as CEO rather than any single triggering event. "He has taken hold of the Chief Executive Officer job in every respect," Buffett wrote of Abel. "He has been making the decisions that matter for some time now, and I have not had to think twice about any of them. So the timing is right to complete the transition."

"Father Time always wins. He has, however, been generous with me." — Warren Buffett, in his letter to Berkshire shareholders

Howard Buffett, a Berkshire director since 1993, has spent decades running the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which focuses on global food security and conflict mitigation, and has served on the boards of Archer Daniels Midland, Coca-Cola and ConAgra Foods, among others. In his letter, Buffett drew a sharp distinction between his son's role and Abel's: "Greg runs the company; Howard will guard its culture and values — both worth more than anything on our balance sheet. Think of Howard as a policy the shareholders own and hope never to claim against." Susan L. Decker will continue as lead independent director.

Abel, speaking on behalf of the Berkshire board, called Buffett's impact on the company and its shareholders "without parallel in the history of American business," adding that the culture Buffett built "will remain at the heart of Berkshire, and Howard will be their guardian," according to the company's official statement.

Wall Street's initial reaction was subdued: shares of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A, BRK.B) were little changed on the news, with the stock up only about 1% for the year, trailing a roughly 11% gain for the S&P 500 in 2026, according to CNBC. That relatively muted year-to-date performance leaves added pressure on Abel to prove the company can keep compounding without Buffett running the boardroom.

Under Buffett, Berkshire's stock rose more than 5,500,000% since the 1960s, dwarfing the S&P 500's roughly 39,000% return over the same stretch, and Buffett's personal fortune — north of $145 billion — still ranks him among the ten richest people alive.

What comes next is largely a formalization of a succession plan Berkshire has signaled for years: Abel continues steering capital allocation and operations, Howard Buffett holds the largely non-executive chairman's role as a cultural backstop, and Warren Buffett, still a major shareholder and board member, stays available for counsel without day-to-day authority. The transition will be a central talking point when Berkshire reports third-quarter results and at next year's annual shareholder meeting in Omaha.