Howard Buffett elected Berkshire Hathaway chairman as Warren Buffett becomes chairman emeritus

SentiSense · Published Sep 18, 2026, 6:16 AM ET · Updated Sep 28, 2026, 2:45 AM ET

Berkshire Hathaway's board elected Howard G. Buffett chairman effective immediately on September 18, 2026, with Warren Buffett named chairman emeritus and remaining a director. The change completes a succession Warren Buffett first described publicly in 2011 and follows Greg Abel taking over as chief executive on January 1, 2026. Howard Buffett has served on the Berkshire board since 1993 and takes a non-executive role focused on protecting the company's culture rather than running operations.

Berkshire Hathaway's board elected Howard G. Buffett as chairman on September 18, 2026, effective immediately, and named his father Warren Buffett chairman emeritus. Warren Buffett, 96, remains a member of the board, and the company said he will continue to offer his judgment and perspective rather than stepping away entirely. BRK.B shareholders are therefore not looking at a clean break with the founder.

The separation of roles is the substance here. Greg Abel has been chief executive since January 1, 2026, and continues to run operations and capital allocation; the chairmanship Howard Buffett takes is a non-executive seat. Warren Buffett has framed the split in exactly those terms, saying Greg runs the company while Howard guards its culture and values, which he called worth more than anything on the balance sheet. This is not a late improvisation: Warren Buffett named Howard as his preferred non-executive chairman in a 2011 CBS News interview, and the plan has been restated repeatedly since.

Howard Buffett, 71, is often described through his non-corporate career, and that description undersells his board experience. He has been a Berkshire director since 1993, a 33-year tenure that predates most of the conglomerate's current subsidiaries. Alongside that he farms, runs the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, founded in 1999 and with more than $1 billion committed to conflict-affected regions including Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, has photographed war zones and endangered species in more than 100 countries, and served as sheriff of Macon County, Illinois.

For a company valued at roughly $1.1 trillion, the governance question is narrower than the headline suggests: a non-executive chair whose mandate is cultural continuity has limited direct influence over the capital allocation decisions that actually move the stock. That falls to Abel, and the results so far invite scrutiny. BRK.B is up about 1% year to date against an 11.5% gain for the S&P 500. What to watch is whether the first post-transition capital deployment and the tone of the next annual letter suggest any change in the decentralised model.