The Berkshire Beat: May 2, 2025

All of the latest Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway news!

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Each and every spring, a caravan of the faithful — tens of thousands of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders from all over the world — descend upon Omaha, Nebraska, for the conglomerate’s annual meeting. And, tomorrow morning, Warren Buffett will once again take center stage to answer all of our burning questions.

This year’s gathering will look a little different, with no introductory video and a slightly shortened Q&A session. But, despite the streamlined format, Buffett’s wit and wisdom remain as eagerly anticipated as ever.

Here’s the full schedule for tomorrow’s proceedings:

And, don’t forget, the fun really kicks off at 8 a.m. ET when Berkshire releases its Q1 2025 earnings report. A little light reading to whet our appetites for the main course coming at 9 a.m. ET.

The questions lobbed at Buffett will no doubt span Berkshire’s vast business empire, his timeless investment philosophy, and his singular perspective on the global economy. I, for one, can’t wait.

I’m hoping that three questions, in particular, are asked of the Berkshire crew:

• Why the new age limit for directors? Berkshire recently implemented a rule barring board members from seeking re-election after the age of 80. That seems to clash with Buffett’s long-held belief that mental acuity — and not the number of candles on a birthday cake — determines a person’s effectiveness. Buffett (as CEO) is rightfully exempt, but I hate to lose Ron Olson as a director just because of an arbitrary age limit that just popped up out of nowhere.

• Is Buffett still okay with the size of Berkshire’s cash mountain? It’s a huge number — $318 billion — and likely to have grown even larger during Q1 2025. For a few years there, a lot of that excess capital got sopped up by share repurchases, but those have stopped altogether with Berkshire’s share price near record highs. And, as we all know, any blockbuster acquisition remains frustratingly elusive. So what, then, to do about all of this money? (I’m personally not bothered by Berkshire sitting on such a massive war-chest, but I know it’s a bone of contention for many shareholders and analysts.)

• And, finally, one for the vice chairman: Do Greg Abel and Ajit Jain share the Buffett and Munger philosophy on retirement? Namely, that you’ll be carried out of Berkshire feet first (assuming no mental decline in old age). Buffett’s incredible longevity — with the big man still sharp at 94 — means that the succession plan he so assiduously put into place might be prematurely disrupted if either Abel or Jain opt for “early” retirement.

Can’t make it to Omaha? I’ll be live-tweeting all of the proceedings on X (@kejca), so feel free to follow along for all of the key Buffett quotes and insights from the meeting.

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

The Omaha World-Herald profiled vice chairman Greg Abel this week — highlighting his strong endorsement from Howard and Susie Buffett. After a recent lunch with Abel, the two Buffett children could not wait to call their dad and gush about the man he has chosen as his successor. “For years, I thought, ‘What is going to happen when my dad is gone?’” said Susie. “No one can take his place, of course. He’s Warren [Buffett]. But Greg is the person [to do it].” She added that her dad and Abel speak on the phone frequently, if not every day. In a statement to the World-Herald, Buffett himself said, “I couldn’t feel better about Greg.”

• The article also quoted several Berkshire managers about the man who oversees the conglomerate’s non-insurance operations. “I don’t remember a month or a quarter gone by where Greg didn’t have a question or a clarity or a thought,” said NetJets CEO Adam Johnson. “And I have to remind myself that he’s doing that 60 times [across all of Berkshire’s subsidiaries].”

  • See’s Candies CEO Pat Egan: “If there’s a guy with a broader sense of the economy and what the direction is from Warren and Charlie, I can’t think of a better person [than Greg].”

  • Pilot CEO Adam Wright: “Everything you hear about him as a leader and business person is true and then some. The things you don’t know about him as a man are even more impressive and impactful.”

Chris Bloomstran joined The Investor’s Podcast over the weekend to discuss Berkshire’s present and future. He echoed much of the incisive analysis found in his latest annual letter to Semper Augustus clients, but I especially enjoyed his reflection on the eventual post-Buffett era. No matter when the Oracle shuffles off this mortal coil, his timeless teachings will endure for generations. “Here we are, decades after Ben [Graham] passed, and he’s still a role model for a lot of us and a teacher for a lot of us,” said Bloomstran. “I’m 100% certain that 50 years from now and 100 years from now, the lessons that Warren and Charlie have given us over time will still be taught.”

• “You won’t get another Warren,” he continued. “You can’t. But what he’s given us through the chairman’s letters [and] now with the archive of the annual meetings, which he donated to CNBC, the videos. These lessons that are timeless will be important for anybody trying to get their arms around how capital should be allocated and how money works for time immemorial.”

Occidental Petroleum CEO Vicki Hollub raised some eyebrows at an energy conference in Oklahoma last week. When asked about the possibility of Berkshire acquiring the rest of her company — it already owns 28.2% — she practically issued a come-and-get-me plea. “It would be a dream come true,” said Hollub. Of course, that doesn’t mean Buffett is interested. “We’re not going to buy control [of Oxy],” he said two years ago. Still, I imagine he might be asked about this tomorrow.

• Hollub also made a compelling case for the critical role that enhanced oil recovery (using carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere) must play in sustaining American energy production — especially considering the soaring energy demands of AI data centers. “People don’t realize that 25-30% of the natural gas produced in the United States today comes from oil production,” she said. “So when we’re thinking about powering AI data centers, we have the natural gas sources — but we also have to keep oil going as well.”

  • There’s still more than 1 trillion barrels of oil in the United States, but carbon dioxide will be needed to efficiently extract it. “We’re only going to get about 20% or less than that from that oil if we don’t use advanced technologies to recover more of that oil,” said Hollub. “We have to do it sooner rather than later. We can’t wait because there’s going to come a time when we see oil production in the United States falling off. It’s going to hit peak supply probably in the 2027-2030 timeframe. And to see that dropping off means that the natural gas associated with it will drop as well. We can’t have that happen if we’re going to continue to grow AI in a very meaningful way.”

The Financial Times reports that Apple plans to source all iPhones sold in the United States — approximately 60 million units annually — from India by the end of 2026. This move, driven by escalating trade tensions and tariffs, would further diversify the company’s supply chain away from China and effectively double India’s iPhone production capacity. According to Reuters, though, Apple only aims to make “most” of its US-bound iPhones in India — not all of them. Even so, that would still represent a huge change since 80% of domestic iPhones are currently made in China.

Morgan Housel’s latest book, The Art of Spending Money, comes out on October 7, 2025. “If The Psychology of Money was about the mindset of growing wealth,” he said, “this book focuses on how to use it. I don’t lecture you [about] how to spend — because everyone is different. This book is about attention, envy, social aspiration, comfort, happiness, regret, and much more.” Automatic preorder.