The Berkshire Beat: July 4, 2025

All of the latest Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway news!

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Earlier this week, Warren Buffett continued his long-standing commitment to philanthropy with a $6 billion donation to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four other family-led organizations. This latest round of giving leaves Buffett with 198,117 Class A shares (and 1,114 of the Class B variety) — good for 29.7% of the aggregated voting power and 13.8% of the economic interest in Berkshire Hathaway.

When Buffett first began giving to these foundations back in 2006, he held 474,998 Class A shares (then valued at $43 billion). In the nearly two decades since, he has donated shares worth about $60 billion — far exceeding his initial stake’s value — yet his remaining stash is still worth an astonishing $145 billion.

Such is the magic of compounding.

What makes Buffett’s biannual donations particularly compelling is not just the numbers — incredible as those might be — but the philosophy woven into his words. In the press release announcing this latest gift, he wrote: “Nothing extraordinary has occurred at Berkshire. A very long runway, simple and generally sound decisions, the American tailwind, and compounding effects produced my current wealth.”

With today being the Fourth of July and all, Buffett’s nod to the American tailwind feels especially apt. Almost without fail, in every annual letter or public interview, he waxes lyrical about the prosperity created here in the United States since 1776 — and how the American Dream remains alive and well for anyone still seeking it.

Whether you live in the United States or just invest in companies based here, we’re all beneficiaries of what Buffett calls the American tailwind — a breeze at our backs that propels all of us into a better (and more prosperous) tomorrow.

Two months ago, at his final annual shareholders meeting as the head man in charge, Buffett doubled down on this belief. “The luckiest day in my life is the day I was born,” he said, “because I was born in the United States.” And, he added, that was still very much the case today. “If I was being born today, I would just keep negotiating in the womb until they said I could be in the United States.”

If you ever need a patriotic pick-me-up, might I suggest Buffett’s 2020 annual letter? At a time when it was quite fashionable to bash America, he nevertheless released a love letter to the Red, White, & Blue that paid special tribute to the economic miracles coming out of the heartland. He signed off this little ode to Middle America with a line that has become his patriotic mantra: “Never bet against America.”

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And, now, on to the latest news and notes out of Omaha…

Q2 2025 was a rough one for Berkshire Hathaway. The stock price sank nearly 10% following Warren Buffett’s retirement announcement. Some attribute this to the so-called “Buffett premium” — elevated value tied to his leadership and market savvy — leaking out of the stock, like air escaping from a balloon. Remember, though, that Berkshire had just hit new all-time highs on the day before the annual meeting — at a level that surpassed many analysts’ intrinsic value estimates, no less — so a modest correction should hardly come as a surprise. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 caught fire and hit its own all-time highs in recent days. What once was a 25+% YTD lead for Berkshire over the benchmark index has now shrunk to just 1% as of June 30.

Did you know Berkshire owns a television station? It acquired WPLG in Miami (FL) over a decade ago from Graham Holdings in the aftermath of the Washington Post sale. The network’s CEO, Bert Medina, was recently inducted into the Florida Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame — and Buffett sent over a short tribute to mark the occasion. “He’s done a wonderful job since he took it over [in 2013],” said Buffett. “Just look at our ratings over the last ten years or so since our purchase. That hasn’t been me. I haven’t done anything. Bert has had a free hand. You have to give people a free hand if you expect them to perform. Particularly when they earned the right by what they’ve accomplished.”

On Tuesday, NetJets president Patrick Gallagher announced that the company had taken delivery of its first two Praetor 500 jets. This marks a significant milestone in its $5 billion deal with Embraer for up to 250 of these midsize, fastest-in-class aircraft. Gallagher posted photos of the two new arrivals with the subtle NetJets livery striping already in place. “You’ve gotta love that new jet smell!” he wrote.

This week, Berkshire collected $204 million in quarterly dividends from Coca-Cola and $26.2 million from Chubb. In other dividend news, Bank of America announced plans to increase its quarterly dividend by 7.7% — starting in the third quarter — after passing the Federal Reserve stress test.

At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Kraft Heinz North America CMO Todd Kaplan highlighted the ubiquity of the company’s brands. “When you think about what’s in your kitchen,” he said, “everybody in America has at least one or two or three of [our] brands.” With Kraft Heinz products — ranging from ketchup to potatoes — in 96% of U.S. homes, the challenge isn’t awareness or distribution. It’s relevance. So how can the company make these 150-year-old brands resonate with today’s consumers? Kaplan’s solution is “Marketing That Happens”, a strategy that leverages earned media and cultural moments over traditional ads. Like its viral NIL partnership with BYU basketball star Richie Saunders, whose great-grandfather co-founded Ore-Ida (a Kraft Heinz brand) and invented the tater tot.

Request: A little help from the Berkshire experts in the crowd. A reader pointed me towards a Bryan Lawrence interview from 2022 in which he spoke about a meeting with Warren Buffett years earlier when he was just starting out at Oakcliff Capital. As Lawrence tells it, Buffett said: “The average stock goes up and down by 80% in a year. And that’s an enormous advantage if you actually take the time to understand the underlying business because the stock price is not reflecting underlying value if it’s going up and down by 80%.” Intrigued but skeptical, Lawrence crunched the numbers — comparing the 52-week highs and lows for various companies — and confirmed Buffett’s claims to be true. This reader asks if Buffett has ever publicly made this same observation using the 80% number that Lawrence mentioned? I’m stumped.

• Buffett frequently emphasizes the irrational mood swings of Mr. Market — and how they often create a disconnect between a stock’s price and intrinsic value. The closest thing I can find to the above quote, though, is a line from the 2003 AGM. “If you look at the value of businesses as measured on the New York Stock Exchange,” he said, “you’ll see fluctuations of 100% in a year.”