Both Barron's and Bloomberg were doing the equivalent of live-blogging the meeting, here's Bloomberg (Barron's tomorrow), May 3:
Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
- Warren Buffett will step down as CEO by year end.
- Buffet downplayed market turmoil, warned against weaponizing trade.
- Berkshire’s energy businesses still need coal plants.
- Auto insurer Geico has cut tens of thousands of jobs.
That’s a wrap of our TOPLive blog coverage of Berkshire
Hathaway’s first-quarter results and annual meeting. Thanks for joining
us. Here are the key takeaways:
- Warren Buffett, 94, said he intends to step down as CEO at year-end, handing the reins to Greg Abel.
- Buffett on tariffs: Although balanced trade can be valuable, it shouldn’t be used as a weapon. The US became dominant in part by trading with other nations and should continue to do so.
- Berkshire’s cash hoard hit a record $347.7 billion in the first quarter. Buffett said that’s much bigger than he wants it to be, but the company has to wait for the right moments to deploy capital.
- Berkshire’s Ajit Jain said Geico reduced the insurer’s headcount from approximately 50,000 to roughly 20,000. That has helped make the company sharper and more competitive.
- Artificial intelligence is likely to significantly disrupt the
auto insurance industry, according to Jain and Buffett. Policies will
shift from operator error to product liability.
