Warren Buffett is stepping down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway after serving in the role at the $1 trillion conglomerate for more than 50 years.
Buffett, 96, will become chairman emeritus and will take on his new role immediately, the company said Friday. His son, Howard, will become Berkshire Hathaway’s new chairman, part of a long-planned succession. Howard Buffett has been on the Berkshire Hathaway board since 1993.
Warren Buffett, known by a legion of financial market followers as the Oracle of Omaha, will remain a director. He has been Berkshire Hathaway’s chairman since 1970.
Greg Abel took over for Buffett as the CEO of the $1 trillion conglomerate at the start of this year, even though Buffett remains one of the most influential investors in the world.
“I have served Berkshire since 1965," Buffett said in a letter to shareholders. “Sixty-plus years in, I still have the best job in the world. That is not something many people my age can say, and I have never felt better about what comes next.”
Buffett said that he is confident with Abel and his son Howard leading Berkshire Hathaway.
“Greg runs the company; Howard will guard its culture and values – both worth more than anything on our balance sheet,” he said. “Think of Howard as a policy the shareholders own and hope never to claim against.”
Michael Withers, professor of management at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, said Buffett took a deliberate approach to Berkshire Hathaway's succession plans and has carried out the transition step by step.
“Buffett seems to have understood that succeeding him wasn’t just about finding another extraordinary leader,” he said. "It was about building a structure that could preserve what makes Berkshire different long after he has stepped away. The test moving forward will be whether Abel and Howard can honor that legacy while still giving Berkshire room to adapt to a market that looks very different from the one Buffett mastered.”
Buffett's fortune has been amassed through Berkshire Hathaway stock. The company, which was a New England textile firm that was built into an investing conglomerate and an icon of Wall Street. In 2024, Berkshire Hathaway became one of the first non-tech companies valued at more than $1 trillion.
Buffett, a longtime philanthropist, has given away roughly $66 billion worth of stock since 2006.
Buffett's take on finance has created its own gravitational pull. When Berkshire Hathaway reveals the stocks that the company has acquired or sold in public disclosures, it can shake markets.
During his time as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, the company nearly doubled the returns of the S&P 500, with a 19.9% compounded annual growth rate compared with the index’s 10.4% gain.
“Warren’s impact on Berkshire and its owners is without parallel in the history of American business," Abel said in a prepared statement. “The culture Warren built and the values he championed will remain at the heart of Berkshire, and Howard will be their guardian.”
Shares of Berkshire Hathaway pointed lower before the opening bell Friday.
FILE - Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, speaks during a game of bridge following the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting May 5, 2019, in Omaha, Neb. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)
Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills kicked off Week 2 in the NFL with another spectacular performance on offense.
Allen had five touchdowns total and the Bills beat the Detroit Lions 41-31 on Thursday night.
After the league tied a record for points in an opening week — an average of 49.4 per game — the Bills and Lions put up 72.
Why are scores soaring?
“I can’t (explain it) because typically it’s like the other way — offenses are trying to get going and defenses can be ahead,” Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles said. “I watched some around-the-league stuff, and it felt like guys just were making plays. There (were) a ton of plays being made after the catch, but you bring it up — defenses are so limited with what they can do based on the rules (before) you get to live tackling, and it’s a different ballgame.”
Poor tackling contributes to more scoring. Tackling is poor because teams don’t practice it as often.
Contact is prohibited throughout offseason workouts per the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement with the players’ union.
There’s a five-day acclimation period at the beginning of training camp. Teams are limited to 16 padded practice days during training camp, down from 28 under the previous CBA. Even during padded practices, there isn’t live tackling every play. Teams can’t have no more than three consecutive days of padded practices during three of the five camp weeks and no more than two consecutive days during the other two weeks.
Long gone are the days when teams used to hold two-a-day full-contact practices in camp.
“We don’t bring players to the ground. I mean, we’re pros at the end of the day. But we’ve all played football before. We all should be able to know how to tackle,” Texans All-Pro edge rusher Will Anderson Jr. said.
Houston’s defense, which was No. 1 last year in fewest yards allowed, was shredded by Allen and the Bills last week.
"Coaches put us in a lot of positions to be able to get guys down on the ground and finish the right way. There’s really no excuse. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t play in preseason or not. When the ball is snapped and you’re in front of the TV and you’re a professional football player, you have to go out there and perform the way you need to perform,” Anderson said.
Denver, which allowed the third-fewest points in 2025, couldn’t stop Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in a 31-10 loss on Monday night.
“I think it just all goes in toward effort,” Broncos two-time All-Pro cornerback Patrick Surtain II said. “Tackling is one of those things where you have to be intentional with it. You have to bring pads, feet and you have to wrap your arms. I just feel like we were assuming that the ball carrier was going to go down at the moment rather than finishing at the end of the day.”
The Texans have another tough challenge this week facing Joe Burrow and the Bengals. Coach DeMeco Ryans won’t stand for another terrible effort.
“The expectation for us defensively is for everybody to improve. Last Sunday wasn’t good enough, not from any one position,” Ryans said. “We play collectively as a defense and when we play together and everybody’s doing their job, being where they’re supposed to be, doing what they’re supposed to do, we play really good defensive football."
With so many teams holding players out of preseason games, joint practices have become the best way to get ready for the regular season. Still, it’s a controlled environment, quarterbacks aren’t getting hit and nobody wants to risk injury.
The first couple weeks of the season are an extension of training camp. Players on offense and defense are still acclimating to the physical nature of the game.
It used to be an advantage for the defense because offenses didn’t get enough reps to get in sync. Seventeen games in, it’s the other way around.
Of course, Allen and the Bills and Jared Goff and the Lions run two of the league’s most dynamic offenses. They make even the best defenses seem pedestrian.
See AP’s full NFL coverage here
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) scores a rushing touchdown as Detroit Lions' Levi Onwuzurike defends during the second half of an NFL football game in Orchard Park, N.Y., Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes )
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) runs the ball against the Detroit Lions during the first half of an NFL football game in Orchard Park, N.Y., Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes)
