An Iowan will become chief executive of the world’s 8th most valuable company.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, who is 94 years old, made the announcement to a crowd of nearly 20,000 at the company’s 2025 shareholders meeting in Omaha this past weekend, an event that was broadcast live on CNBC.
“The time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year end,” Buffett said.
Greg Abel is a long-time executive at Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy, which Buffett’s company acquired 25 years ago. Abel currently oversees all of Berkshire’s non-insurance companies. In 2021, Buffett announced Abel would be his successor, but Buffett announced a date for the transition Saturday. “And Greg doesn’t know anything about this until what he’s hearing right now,” Buffett said, and the crowd laughed.
Buffett said Berkshire Hathaway’s 11 member board of directors will meet in a couple of months and he predicts they will “unanimously” approve Abel’s new role as the company’s chief decision-maker. “I will still hang around and could conceivably be useful in a few cases,” Buffett said, “but the final word would be what Greg said in operations, in capital deployment, whatever it might be.”
Buffett spent very little time at Berkshire Hathaway’s headquarters in Omaha and Abel, who is 62, is expected to continue living in Des Moines. He will oversee Berkshire’s massive stock portfolio, which includes companies like BNSF Railroad, GEICO and Pilot Flying J Travel Centers. Abel was born in Alberta, Canada. Abel won the Horatio Alger Award in 2018 and, in comments posted on the organization’s website, Abel called Buffett a mentor who has “a positive view on life and focuses on sharing and teaching.”