Warren Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, said he would step down from that position by the end of the year.
Mr. Buffett, 94, transformed Berkshire Hathaway, once a textile company, into a powerful business investor, making billions along the way.
Here’s a look back at some of the defining moments in his life.
Aug. 30, 1930
The ‘Oracle of Omaha’
In August 1930, Mr. Buffett was born in Omaha to Leila and Howard Buffett, an investment banker and future Republican congressman.
At 9 years old, he started studying the stock market.
“I used to chart all kinds of stock, the more numbers the better,” he told The New York Times Magazine in 1990.
He studied at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Nebraska and Columbia Business School before returning to Omaha.
1959
Meeting Charlie T. Munger
In 1959, Mr. Buffett met Charles T. Munger after a doctor in Omaha introduced them to each other. They went into business together soon after and worked together for more than 50 years.
In 2015, Mr. Buffett credited Mr. Munger, who became vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway in 1978, with creating the structure of the business.
“The blueprint he gave me was simple: Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices,” Mr. Buffett wrote in a letter looking back at the company’s first 50 years.
Mr. Munger died in 2023.
1963
Seeing Past a Salad Oil Swindle
The stock for American Express Company cratered in 1963 after the public learned the company had provided tens of millions of dollars in warehouse receipts for salad oil that did not exist through a warehousing subsidiary. Inspectors had been fooled by tubs of water topped with salad oil, and receipts were forged.
Mr. Buffett, who was not well known at the time, spotted an opportunity and put $13 million into American Express because it had strong assets besides the entities involved with the salad oil scandal.
The purchase is considered one of his earliest investment successes. Berkshire Hathaway is now the biggest shareholder in American Express.
1965
Trading Textiles for Corporations
Mr. Buffett first bought shares in Berkshire Hathaway, then a textile company, in December 1962. He continued to buy shares over the years and in May 1965 formally took control of the business, transforming it into a conglomerate holding company.
In the letter commemorating the company’s 50th anniversary, Mr. Buffett said he regretted spending so much money on the Berkshire stock he had acquired in the early 1960s. He closed the textile business in 1985.
1993
A ‘Gruesome’ Blunder
Mr. Buffett has been open about his investment mistakes, and in his 50th anniversary letter he called Berkshire Hathaway’s purchase of the company Dexter Shoe in 1993 “the most gruesome” error.
Berkshire Hathaway bought Dexter Shoe, a shoe manufacturer based in Maine, for $433 million, and its value quickly dropped to zero.
“As a financial disaster, this one deserves a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records,” he wrote.
Mr. Buffett was one of the world’s wealthiest people when he said in 2006 that he planned to donate the bulk of his fortune to the Gates Foundation and four other philanthropies.
Four years later, Mr. Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates enlisted other wealthy Americans to make similar commitments.
Mr. Buffett told The Wall Street Journal in 2024 that the foundation would not receive any more of his money after his death. The money will instead go to a charitable trust overseen by his daughter and two sons.
May 3, 2025
Buffett Exits
At Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting on Saturday, Mr. Buffett announced that he was stepping down.
Mr. Buffett said that he wanted Gregory E. Abel, the vice chairman of Berkshire’s non-insurance companies, to take over as chief executive by the end of the year.
Mr. Buffett, Berkshire’s single biggest shareholder with a roughly 14 percent stake that is worth about $164 billion, will remain chairman of the company.
