Buffett/Berkshire - general news

[LC]

2 minutes ago, Pellom said:

An underrated part is I think he had a lot of respect for Melinda. 

 

He should gift her the shares for her charitable work, if you ask me.

[John Hjorth]

1 minute ago, Pellom said:

Hard to know if he thinks Gates did anything wrong (i.e., terminated the personal friendship/relationship) or whether he knows it wouldn't look good politically to give money to the foundation any longer. 

 

An underrated part is I think he had a lot of respect for Melinda. 

 

Yeah, @Pellom,

 

I think and speculate the same. The Squawk Box interview with Becky Quick tomorrow will be interesting to experience. I also share your thoughts about Warren Buffetts relationship with Melinda Gates.

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Furthermore, I looked up the 2025 Donation Press Release on the Berkshire website, to compare :

 

2025 :

 

Quote

Today, Warren E. Buffett has converted 8,239 A shares into 12,358,500 B shares in order to donate 12,358,321 shares of Berkshire Hathaway “B” stock to five foundations: 9,433,839 to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, 943,384 shares to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and 660,366 shares to each of the Sherwood Foundation, Howard G. Buffett Foundation and NoVo Foundation. The donations will be delivered on June 30. Mr. Buffett’s ownership of Berkshire now consists of 198,117 A shares and 1,144 B shares.  ...

 

So the '5 percent of the remaining shares each year gifted' system and pattern appears this to be broken, after now 19 years, apart from the gift allocation changed. 'Wool in mounth' message about the next eight years donations.

[Pellom]

Pretty cool website here to track the various foundations of Warren's kids:
https://www.grantmakers.io/profiles/v1/470824755-sherwood-foundation/?page=2

https://www.grantmakers.io/profiles/v1/470824756-howard-g-buffett-foundation/

https://www.grantmakers.io/profiles/v1/470824753-novo-foundation/

 

It'll be interesting to see if these foundations follow Warren's mandate to give it all away within a certain period of time. 

[kiwing100]

Announcement of most recent donation of BRK shares by Buffett

 

https://berkshirehathaway.com/news/jul1426.pdf

 

BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC. 

NEWS RELEASE 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 14, 2026

Omaha, NE (BRK.A; BRK.B) – 

Today, Warren E. Buffett will convert 8,000 Berkshire Hathaway Class A shares into 12,000,000 

Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares in order to donate the 12,000,000 Class “B” shares to four 

foundations: 9,000,000 shares to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and 1,000,000 shares to 

each of the Sherwood Foundation, Howard G. Buffett Foundation and Novo Foundation. 

Mr. Buffett’s ownership of Berkshire now consists of 188,290 Class A shares and 1,162 Class B 

shares. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

Mr. Buffett’s comments follow: 

“My goal is to dispose of all of my Berkshire shares within about eight years. As I explained last 

year, my children are unfortunately growing older. I have every hope that the three of them are 

able to carry out the disposal of my shares by December 31, 2034. 

Of course, mortality is unpredictable, but my remaining shares will be donated to the four 

foundations one way or the other by December 31, 2034. The goal is to have the grants grow 

annually to each of the three foundations managed by each of my children and the annual grant to 

the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation grow at a somewhat greater rate.

 

 

[Gamecock-YT]

13 hours ago, Pellom said:

Pretty cool website here to track the various foundations of Warren's kids:
https://www.grantmakers.io/profiles/v1/470824755-sherwood-foundation/?page=2

https://www.grantmakers.io/profiles/v1/470824756-howard-g-buffett-foundation/

https://www.grantmakers.io/profiles/v1/470824753-novo-foundation/

 

It'll be interesting to see if these foundations follow Warren's mandate to give it all away within a certain period of time. 

 

Funny that one kid takes $0 in comp, the other $1, and one $585K.

[gfp]

Worth a watch -

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/15/warren-buffett-tells-cnbc-he-initiated-berkshire-hathaways-investment-in-alphabet.html

[Hektor]

12 minutes ago, gfp said:

Worth a watch -

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/15/warren-buffett-tells-cnbc-he-initiated-berkshire-hathaways-investment-in-alphabet.html

Thank you @gfp. 

 

From the interview:

 

Becky: You did not buy when they were asset light, but are when they are spending big on assets. Why?

Warren: I made a mistake.

 

 

Any idea why he is willing to buy now but not back then? I am sure he is deflecting by the "I made a mistake" answer. Any thoughts on what he is not giving away?

[gfp]

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/15/warren-buffett-calls-bill-gates-actions-with-epstein-distasteful-but-people-make-mistakes.html

 

at the very end of the video - Buffett broke his leg a few weeks ago and had surgery and is recovering well.  96th b-day coming in a month or so

Edited 10 hours ago by gfp

[gfp]

Buffett on Warsh -

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/15/buffett-says-trumps-pick-of-kevin-warsh-for-fed-chair-was-good-choice.html

[kiwing100]

Buffett on CNBC

 

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/07/15/warren-buffett-ended-gates-donations-to-give-more-to-my-children-not-because-of-epstein-ties.html

 

https://youtu.be/vaHbb3-tHQA

 

 

[73 Reds]

32 minutes ago, kiwing100 said:

Buffett on CNBC

 

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/07/15/warren-buffett-ended-gates-donations-to-give-more-to-my-children-not-because-of-epstein-ties.html

 

https://youtu.be/vaHbb3-tHQA

 

 

Call me skeptical.  At age 95, Munger was much better at keeping his cards close to the vest.

[Intelligent_Investor]

Charlie didn't give a single f who he offended. Warren does care about PR

[Intelligent_Investor]

Surprised he sounded down on Apple. Maybe he was just a big Tim Apple fan

[Milu]

Who’s this Buffett character buying all this alphabet stock. Doesn’t he know that it’s going to be free cash flow negative soon and that it’s wasting a ton of money on capex that has no chance of yielding a successful return and that Michael Burry said that it is gaming their depreciation by artificially extending out the years. Old man must have gone crazy.  

[cubsfan]

3 hours ago, Hektor said:

Thank you @gfp. 

 

From the interview:

 

Becky: You did not buy when they were asset light, but are when they are spending big on assets. Why?

Warren: I made a mistake.

 

 

Any idea why he is willing to buy now but not back then? I am sure he is deflecting by the "I made a mistake" answer. Any thoughts on what he is not giving away?

 

My feeling is that Ron Olson was attorney for the principals, and like the Microsoft story, Buffett may have wanted to avoid any accusations of insider information.

 

But that is just my weak opinion.

[John Hjorth]

1 hour ago, Milu said:

Who’s this Buffett character buying all this alphabet stock. Doesn’t he know that it’s going to be free cash flow negative soon and that it’s wasting a ton of money on capex that has no chance of yielding a successful return and that Michael Burry said that it is gaming their depreciation by artificially extending out the years. Old man must have gone crazy.  

 

@Milu, you're such a troublemaker! ,

 

It's sacrilege to post something like that here!  [j/k naturally!]

[Xerxes]

My god, Buffett looks so older 

[Charlie]

I think we Buffett nerds need the full interview:

 

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/07/15/watch-cnbcs-full-interview-with-berkshire-hathaway-chairman-warren-buffett.html

 

or excerpts as a transcript:

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/15/cnbc-exclusive-excerpts-berkshire-hathaway-chairman-warren-buffett-speaks-with-cnbcs-becky-quick-on-cnbcs-squawk-box-today.html

 

 

Cheers! 

[Spekulatius]

5 hours ago, Hektor said:

Thank you @gfp. 

 

From the interview:

 

Becky: You did not buy when they were asset light, but are when they are spending big on assets. Why?

Warren: I made a mistake.

 

 

Any idea why he is willing to buy now but not back then? I am sure he is deflecting by the "I made a mistake" answer. Any thoughts on what he is not giving away?

I can’t help it:

[Munger_Disciple]

The only new thing I learnt from the interview was that Alphabet purchase was Buffett's, not Greg's investment. 

 

It's clear that Warren's Berkshire stock will go to the four foundations run by his three children. What's not clear to me is if the foundations will continue to be big shareholders of Berkshire or not. 

[jbwent63]

29 minutes ago, Munger_Disciple said:

The only new thing I learnt from the interview was that Alphabet purchase was Buffett's, not Greg's investment. 

 

It's clear that Warren's Berkshire stock will go to the four foundations run by his three children. What's not clear to me is if the foundations will continue to be big shareholders of Berkshire or not. 

Becky asked the question (I thought she was excellent in this visit), but Warren didn't answer (Will all the funds be spent within 12 months of receipt, or something like that).

[Eldad]

“5th? hold on, it’s 3rd largest” Come on Becky would it hurt to read a letter or two since interviewing him is your whole career? At this point aren’t they just friends? Why does she do the fake hardball stuff? WB likes her and I guess that’s what matters. 
 

WB was almost unbelievably great. Very touching when he was explaining his leg and just said I’m happy I was born. Reminds me of my grandparents at the end. Every time you turn around they break something and it’s just frustrating. 

[Milu]

4 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

 

@Milu, you're such a troublemaker! ,

 

It's sacrilege to post something like that here!  [j/k naturally!]

Sorry @John Hjorth. Good to have a laugh every now and then

[marazul]

Looking at the form 4 filing, seems likely Berkshire has repurchased $9bn so far since 1q26. It is an estimate and might vary between $12bn and $4bn given decimals. But good news.

[73 Reds]

53 minutes ago, jbwent63 said:

Becky asked the question (I thought she was excellent in this visit), but Warren didn't answer (Will all the funds be spent within 12 months of receipt, or something like that).

Placing that kind of constraint on smaller charitable foundations is probably not what Buffett intends.  Legally, I believe charitable foundations only have to spend 5% of their assets each year for charitable purposes.  Buffett will probably impose lesser requirements on foundations run by his family members than he did on the Gates Foundation.