What Warren Buffett said at Berkshire Hathaway's first annual meeting after stepping aside

At 95, Warren Buffett may no longer be running Berkshire Hathaway day to day, but he still drew the loudest applause in Omaha on Saturday as the investing legend made a brief but closely watched appearance at the conglomerate’s first annual shareholder meeting under new CEO Greg Abel.

The meeting marked a major transition for Berkshire, with Abel, 63, presiding over the event for the first time after formally taking over as chief executive in January, ending Buffett’s remarkable 60-year run at the helm.

Buffett, now chairman, kept his comments brief but left no ambiguity about his confidence in his successor.

"Greg is doing everything I did and then some," Buffett told shareholders, drawing one of the loudest reactions of the day, according to Reuters.

The annual meeting came at a critical moment for Berkshire, whose shares have underperformed the S&P 500 since Buffett announced his succession plans last year. Investors are now watching how Abel plans to modernise a conglomerate built on insurance, railroads, utilities, manufacturing and consumer businesses at a time when Wall Street is increasingly focused on artificial intelligence and technology-led growth.

Opening the meeting, Abel acknowledged the scale of the transition and said Berkshire’s focus would remain unchanged.
"We have to excel across all of our businesses. That has always been our focus, and it will continue to be our focus," he said.

Buffett also used the stage to praise Tim Cook, whose tenure helped turn Berkshire's investment in Apple into one of its most profitable bets.

"When we made our investment, we were turning it over to Tim," Buffett said, adding that Berkshire’s roughly $35 billion investment had grown to about $185 billion before tax.

"We're very big around here on having other people do the work," he joked, prompting laughter from shareholders.

The meeting came just hours after Berkshire reported strong first-quarter earnings. Operating profit rose 18% to $11.35 billion, compared with $9.64 billion a year ago, helped by stronger insurance underwriting and broad-based gains across businesses.

Net income more than doubled to $10.1 billion, while the company resumed share buybacks for the first time since May 2024, repurchasing $234 million worth of stock during the quarter. Berkshire ended March with a cash pile of $380.2 billion, one of the largest in corporate America.