The Berkshire Beat: December 12, 2025
All of the latest Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway news!
Happy Friday and welcome to our new subscribers!
Special thanks, too, to those who recently became paid supporters! ❤️
This week’s headline news, naturally, revolves around Todd Combs’s surprising departure from Berkshire Hathaway to take up a new role at JPMorgan Chase.
That bombshell dropped on Monday morning, alongside several other major changes to Berkshire’s leadership structure. And reactions and analysis continue to pour in…
Christopher Bloomstran gave his bullish two cents on the Combs news in an X thread. He believes that these moves are primarily strategic preparations for CEO-in-waiting Greg Abel, rather than signs of a conglomerate in disarray. “Today’s initiatives,” he wrote, “indicate Greg is creating an internal structure to ensure he can be most effective leading the business over the coming decades.”
He described Combs’s exit as “not necessarily a surprise” and speculated that he might simply see a brighter future for himself at JPMorgan Chase.
“Todd may have aspired to managing more or all of the portfolio which wasn’t going to happen,” said Bloomstran. “Nor do I think he was a realistic candidate to ultimately succeed Ajit Jain in overseeing Berkshire’s vast insurance operation, lacking particular experience in reinsurance.”
Taken altogether, these leadership changes flow directly from Warren Buffett’s prescient decision years ago to appoint Abel as vice chairman of non-insurance operations, which gave his successor ample time to navigate any learning curves on the subsidiary side and know exactly how he wants everything set up.
“Greg knows where he needs more formal assistance in his new role as CEO,” said Bloomstran, “and has had the better part of eight years to realize what’s required to be the most effective leading Berkshire in the decades to come. I take zero portion of today’s news negatively.”
The Financial Times shed a little more light on Combs’s decision — including his special relationship with JPMorgan Chase. It all started last month at a JPM event, where CEO Jamie Dimon sensed that Combs had more than a passing interest in the bank’s ambitious plans for its “Security and Resiliency” investment fund.
“Intrigued by the job’s patriotic and eclectic profile”, Combs asked Dimon to tell him more about the job. And the CEO wasted no time reeling in his man. “I said, ‘If you are remotely interested in this, we’re all in,’” recounted Dimon.
“[Todd] loves this company,” he continued. “It’s a natural home. I think he finds it unbelievably interesting to use his skills in different ways.”
And, of course, there’s also the personal angle: Combs served on the JPMorgan Chase board for nearly ten years and worked closely with Dimon on the Haven healthcare initiative. If Combs were ever going to leave Berkshire, it makes sense that it would be for an “interesting and important” job at JPMorgan Chase.
Adam Mead, author of The Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway, agreed that this all comes down to Abel putting his stamp on the organization he will soon lead. I’m certainly much more aligned with Mead’s take on the Combs situation than with some of the more cynical narratives I’ve seen floating around. (Like Combs being fired or forced out. Consider me extremely skeptical of that.)
As Mead put it: “Todd’s move to JPM is consistent with his energetic nature. He’s a bright guy who clearly enjoys figuring out how the world works and wants to do something to improve it. Witness his oversight of Haven, the ill-fated healthcare joint venture between BRK, JPM, and Amazon; his assumption of the role of GEICO CEO while maintaining investment duties; and now heading a brand new initiative at JPM.”
And, while it may not be the choice I personally would make, it’s not hard to believe that Combs might find it more appealing to report directly to Jamie Dimon — after fifteen years answering only to Buffett — rather than a new CEO in Abel.
And, now, more news and notes from the Berkshire Hathaway orbit…
An updated and expanded edition of the aforementioned Complete Financial History of Berkshire Hathaway is on the way!
has written 25,000 words of new material on the conglomerate’s activity over the past five years. This includes “the maturing Apple investment, the pandemic, Berkshire’s Japanese investments, its acquisition of Alleghany, the spicy story of the Pilot saga, share repurchases, and much more”. Available in April 2026.
There were a lot of headlines last week about an apparent exodus of Apple execs from the iPhone maker to other tech rivals. Most notably, that Meta Platforms had poached Apple’s head of user interface design, Alan Dye. However, in the case of Dye, this might not be the devastating blow that some make it out to be.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball called this “the best personnel news at Apple in decades” and proceeded to call Dye’s work “terrible” and off-putting to many young up-and-coming designers. “Everyone I’ve spoken to is happy — if not downright giddy — at the news that [Stephen] Lemay is replacing Dye,” he wrote.
“The sentiment within the ranks at Apple is that today’s news is almost too good to be true,” continued Gruber. “People had given up hope that Dye would ever get squeezed out, and no one expected that he’d just up and leave on his own.” Ex-Apple designer Ben Hylak echoed this excitement, calling Lemay “the guy you’ve all been praying for”.
And, in even better news, the man who Apple could by all accounts not afford to lose — chip leader Johny Srouji — rubbished reports of his own imminent exit. In a memo to his staff earlier this week, he wrote, “I love my team and I love my job at Apple and I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.” Unlike some others, Srouji is seen as a generational talent who could not easily be replaced.
Chevron CEO Mike Wirth explained on Wednesday how improved production techniques more than offset the O&G industry’s declining rig counts. “We can drill more feet per day with a rig today than we could in the past,” he said. “So rig count is not nearly as interesting a metric as how many feet a day you can drill [and] how many wells you can complete in a period of time. We’re getting more work done out of fewer pieces of equipment today.”
A happy development, as Wirth expects oil and gas to be with us for a long time to come. “I think both of those commodities are going to be essential to the global economy,” he said. “I think demand for both of those will be much higher than it is today. And I think you’re going to see good companies in our industry still producing more of that and doing it in a way that keeps costs very affordable for the economy.”
At the WSJ CEO Council earlier this week, Wirth also revealed that he is already discussing succession plans with the Chevron board. “I’ve been doing this for eight years,” he said, “and as soon as we’ve got the next person ready to go, my job is to get out of the way.”
NetJets reached an agreement with Starlink (owned by SpaceX) to equip 600 aircraft with high-speed in-flight internet by the end of next year. “With Starlink,” said NetJets president Patrick Gallagher, “travel is elevated with reliable connectivity whether our owners are flying for business or leisure — as seamless connectivity is critical to the experience our owners need and deserve.”
In other NetJets news, the Berkshire-owned private jet company had 38,124 departures during November — a 12.5% increase over last year. To give an idea of NetJets’s dominance, the #2 mark in November came from Flexjets with 15,294 flights. In this industry, there’s NetJets and there’s everybody else.
And, finally, a few odds and ends to finish off the week…
BNSF Railway will increase its track inspection capabilities more than tenfold in 2026 by deploying a new system of locomotive-based sensors. The ODIN (Onboard Defect Identification & Notification) system was developed in-house in 2023 and should allow BNSF to respond quickly to track defects and avoid costly derailments. The full network should be covered by the end of Q1 2026.
This week, Berkshire collected $208.7 million in quarterly dividends from Chevron and $23.2 million from Moody’s.
Coca-Cola COO Henrique Braun will succeed James Quincey as CEO in March of next year. Quincey will remain at the soft drink giant as executive chairman.