CEOInterviews.AICNBC's Interview with Warren Buffett July 15th 2026 (1080p HD)

I

Interviewer0:00

Warren, first of all, thank you for sitting down and talking with us today. I appreciate it. The last time we sat down and spoke with you, or I guess it was two times ago in March when we sat down with you to talk about what you were doing with your charitable giving, you said that you were going to be watching and waiting, that you were kind of waiting to see what came out about Bill Gates and the Epstein files and what had happened. You said you hadn't determined what you were going to do. Today, you put out a release saying that you will be increasing the amount of money that you give to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, your three children's foundations, but there will be nothing given right now to the Gates Foundation. Is that decision? Is that

W

Warren Buffett0:05

It's always good to sit down. Yes, I find the same thing.

But in interpreting that, I would point out that I read a great deal since January 1st, in terms of what happened with Bill and Epstein. I read his remarks to Congress given under oath, and I read his cross-examination. While it's distasteful or while he made mistakes, I made mistakes in hiring all kinds of people or choosing friends and then finding out later that they weren't what I thought they were. And so I found nothing in there that was beyond what I could picture myself doing. And he ended it and I've had situations where I made mistakes about people or people felt I made mistakes about me, but life goes on and no one bats a thousand in the business of choosing people.

I

Interviewer2:08

You're talking about hiring decisions, maybe who you're associating yourself with. And there were certainly some questionable decisions on that that came up in the release of these files, but there was also other personal information.

W

Warren Buffett2:22

Yeah, no, which he admitted to. No, and there again I would say that I've known some pretty wonderful people and I still know some wonderful people. I don't think they've made every decision.

I

Interviewer2:37

So why if that's your opinion on it, why are you no longer giving money to the Gates Foundation?

W

Warren Buffett2:44

I reevaluated my whole situation. It's just like I've been doing since I was in my 20s and we've gotten married, Susie and I, and we didn't really have any money, but we did know that we intended to live fine and we intended to have a family, but we did not have aspirations of having six houses or a 500 foot yacht or anything of the sort. So even then we talked about what we would do philanthropically. But my idea and conviction was that I would compound money at a better rate than society generally and that Susie would give it away better than 99.9% of the people that were giving it away, and she would get involved personally with the gifts whereas I like to do things wholesale and she liked to do things retail. So we had a plan but we didn't have any money. Over time the money started to pile up, and she would say, 'Are we rich yet?' And I would say, 'No, but we're getting closer.' But I was not in a hurry to do anything. We did some small things as we went along. I thought the most important threat to mankind was the nuclear bomb, and I so I had sort of grandiose plans in my mind about how I could change the probabilities of that happening, and I finally came to the conclusion after decades that I could not have a 1/100 or 1/1000 of 1% chance of succeeding in that. And it's nice to bet on long shots, but betting on things that are...

I

Interviewer4:37

So you've changed your plans.

W

Warren Buffett4:39

So I changed plans.

I

Interviewer4:40

Why did you change your plans?

W

Warren Buffett4:41

Well, we changed plans because of what I said out here. The money began to pile up.

I

Interviewer4:48

No, but you changed your plan now. In 2024, you said it was a lifetime pledge to the Gates Foundation. Now in 2026, you were saying that's not the case. What happened?

W

Warren Buffett4:58

Well, what happened was that I gave the Gates Foundation a great deal of money.

I

Interviewer5:03

Maybe $47 billion in total to the

W

Warren Buffett5:05

And I thought that was a good decision. I think it was a decent decision. But I did not think my kids were in any way ready to give away vast sums of money. We started Susan and I started with them. I think we gave them $100,000 each and

I

Interviewer5:25

This goes back 30 years at this point or longer?

W

Warren Buffett5:28

That's about right. Yeah. But they were growing children. They had children of their own by that time. But still, I don't think they were ready for it, and I certainly had to treat them all equally. So that's always a problem if they have unequal talents or something. I can't turn them all into musicians or baseball players. But I really hoped in the charitable field that they would have common goals and be able to work out among themselves a way where with vast amounts of money that everybody felt there was plenty to do what they wanted to do.

I

Interviewer6:11

And you think that's the case today?

W

Warren Buffett6:13

Pardon?

I

Interviewer6:13

You think that's the case today?

W

Warren Buffett6:15

The probabilities of that are extraordinarily high. And now, could something happen to this plan? Of course. I mean, I've got three children that are what, 72 and 71 and look at my age. I mean, things can happen in this world that cause you to change. But I have no expectation of change. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, we've reached the ideal point. We kicked Susie out in 2004. So it's been more of me kicking up the amounts that we received annually. And clearly, they feel happy with the job too. I mean, there's no sense sticking people in a job that they aren't fit for or that they differ totally from you and your views. I mean, I had different views in life than my dad who I admired more than anybody in the world. But it still didn't mean that I joined his church or did anything identically. And he encouraged that view. He would quote to me Emerson, which Emerson said something to the effect that the force in you is new in nature, you know, then saying, you know, you're one of a kind. Find out what that one is. And I think I found it very young by luck, circumstance, and pretty purposeful pursuit myself. My kids did not. They behaved like most kids say. They flirted with a lot of different ideas. But I feel 100% now about what I have seen them do. My son Howard just published a 100-page or so report explaining what he's doing, why he's doing, what it's costing.

I

Interviewer8:18

For the Howard Buffett Foundation.

W

Warren Buffett8:20

And it's better than I could write. He has a sense of stewardship. And he also has enormous empathy for people he sees that don't have it as lucky as he is.

I

Interviewer8:38

So then is it fair to say 20 years ago in 2006 when you made this decision, you trusted the Gates Foundation more than your children, and now you trust your children more than the Gates Foundation?

W

Warren Buffett8:48

No, the amounts were different. It's not to say that I trusted them different way, but I felt they were capable of handling it. I would certainly not going to turn something over to my kids and then pull it back from them. And the Gates Foundation as it turned out then earned far more money than they expected to do. They spend more money than anybody in the world I can think of.

I

Interviewer9:15

Yeah, they have an endowment of north of $90 billion I think at this point.

W

Warren Buffett9:18

Around that figure. And Bill has very substantial resources outside, which he intends to give and I believe 100% that they will go there. I'm impressed by the fact that my kids really want to give the money away rather than do other things with it as they go along. So they

I

Interviewer14:49

You mean, rather than spend it on themselves, they give it

W

Warren Buffett14:52

Buildings or anything of the sort.

I

Interviewer14:54

Right.

W

Warren Buffett14:54

No. When they're they don't need more help as they go along, but I think the foundations employ something between 11 and 25 employees each.

I

Interviewer15:24

Total between the three foundations? Each, okay.

W

Warren Buffett15:27

Yeah. And they have expense ratios far below that of institutions that are much better known than

I

Interviewer15:35

Expense ratios closer to 1% or less.

W

Warren Buffett15:37

They've shown that they're not regarding it as play money.

I

Interviewer15:40

Right. Right, meaning that the bulk almost everything they get goes back out the door.

W

Warren Buffett15:44

Well, it all goes out the door eventually, but yeah. Yeah, they're not going to build huge home office buildings or hold conferences at esoteric places and all kinds of things. There's nothing wrong with doing that, but the important thing is whether people that have 100 times what they need and don't pass it along to somebody else for the next generation. And in many parts of the world they've been doing that for thousands of years.

I

Interviewer16:20

Yeah, you're not a big fan of bureaucracy. Berkshire Hathaway was run here in this office with 25 people or something

W

Warren Buffett16:28

25 people and we probably grew in size 10 for 1 before we added the last two or three.

I

Interviewer16:36

Mhm. Um, before we move on, does Bill Gates know about this? When we spoke with you in March, you said you had not spoken with him since any of these allegations started coming out. He said the same thing last month in June when he sat down with his congressional testimony that he had not spoken with you since January. Have you spoken with him since and does this come as a surprise to him?

W

Warren Buffett16:59

No, it does not come as a surprise. He gave my alma mater, I don't know, three weeks ago or I kind of lose track on time, but certainly not three months, but three since we talked. And we spent 3 hours talking together, and he intends to call me. He's the one that initiates calls just generally, and as you can see, I'm available anytime, but he's much more organized than I am, but he's already proposed another one.

I

Interviewer17:44

Another meeting?

W

Warren Buffett17:45

Yeah, and we have had an enormous number of good times together since we met whatever it was, 1991, and he's always done more than his share. You don't see me doing the planning or the

I

Interviewer18:04

In the friendship, you mean?

W

Warren Buffett18:05

Yeah, it's been a wonderful friendship. And Bill and I are interested in enough things that overlap that we find plenty to talk about, and then each of us has got his own specialty to some extent.

I

Interviewer18:24

But you told him three weeks ago or so when you met him that you would not be making any more donations to the Gates Foundation?

W

Warren Buffett18:30

Yeah, I may have even meant it. I can't tell you exactly what I told him, but at some point I had read what Congress came up with, I'd read everything, and all I can say is he, I don't know whether I've done dumb things, but I've done just many dumb things in life. I mean, all I have to do is look at our portfolio. Four out of five of the decisions I've made have not been anything out of the ordinary.

I

Interviewer19:11

But he was okay when you told him this was okay.

W

Warren Buffett19:15

Yeah.

I

Interviewer19:15

So he's on board. None of this is new to him.

W

Warren Buffett19:17

Bill, unlike me, more or less I think wants it to end when he dies. And of course he doesn't know

I

Interviewer19:27

His foundation.

W

Warren Buffett19:28

The Gates Foundation. Whereas I hope that my kids live a lot longer than I do. And I hope all three participate. And I think all three will be better off for doing that. But then that's not a decision that was made when Susie and I started giving them, I think we moved it up to maybe 30 million a year.

I

Interviewer19:57

To the kids' foundations?

W

Warren Buffett19:58

No, actually to their father. I don't remember exact figures. But we gave it to them when we were 99% sure that they would be willing and in some cases eager to do things for other people. They've had a good life. They've followed that rule that somebody told me a long time ago, which I give credit for but think of on myself, which is that if you're the child of some very rich family, you should be given enough to do something but not enough to do nothing.

I

Interviewer20:53

Right.

W

Warren Buffett20:53

And that's exactly what's been going on at an increased scale. To step it up now because at my age the probabilities really get against me. So the last will I wrote is very likely to be my final will, whereas the wills that I was writing when I was 30 or 40 or 50, I knew they would change.

I

Interviewer21:21

Let's talk about that. The other thing that you're announcing in this is that you would like to see the money go out at an expedited rate. To this point, it had been 10 years after your death, you thought the shares would all be dispersed to charity. Now you're saying that you would like all of those shares to be dispersed 8 years from now by the end of 2034.

W

Warren Buffett21:47

Yeah.

I

Interviewer21:47

What changed your mind on that and what does that mean?

W

Warren Buffett21:50

Well, it certainly means that I had two purposes in all of Berkshire and particularly with essentially 100% of my money in Berkshire. I you know, that's my painting. And I like the painting. I like the people associated with it and it's been refined over time. I've added an apple over here or something. And I don't think I know of 10 people in the United States that I would trust to hand that over to.

I

Interviewer22:29

Your company? You're talking about your company?

W

Warren Buffett22:32

I don't know of five people. And I know a lot of people. And I have a very high standard in terms of what I'm looking for in that person. And clearly we've found him with Greg Abel. So that becomes more evident by the day. Even this year there's been added things.

I

Interviewer22:54

So you don't think you need to hold on to the shares or have your family have voting power over those shares for as long because you think Greg Abel is

W

Warren Buffett23:03

He is the choice. The only question is he's not immortal either. You always have this mortality question, and nobody gets away from it. People can be in marvelous health and seem like it and you know, they who died the other day? Lindsey Graham? 71 or something. So there's an enormous variety and variation from being lucky to then not being lucky. That's the bet I make with Greg. I do not have a list of 10. I don't have 10 kids either, but even I don't have a list of three.

I

Interviewer23:48

In terms of who you would trust the company to at this point.

W

Warren Buffett23:50

Yeah.

I

Interviewer23:50

Right.

W

Warren Buffett23:51

No, I've got directors that I trust to be imbued with the concept of Berkshire Hathaway. They would like to keep it going. So I've got the right group. That's the intermediary in making that choice. But then things don't always work out perfectly in the world.

I

Interviewer24:12

So your hope is that the shares will be dispersed by the end of 2034, just over 8 years from now. But I take it if you're not here and the kids are the ones making the choices, you would leave it to their decision making at that point?

W

Warren Buffett24:29

Yeah, and eight years from now, my daughter will be 80, very close to 81. Another one will be 70. And it's not just a question of mortality, it's a question of keeping your marbles too.

I

Interviewer24:45

[laughter]

Have they heard you say it like this?

W

Warren Buffett24:48

Well, I mean I'm losing marbles at this point. I accumulated marbles for a longer time than I deserved. And that's just a matter of luck. I've seen so many managers of our companies that, well, I think I mentioned it in a few annual reports, annual meetings. We had guys cutting out paper dolls and their assistants covering for them.

I

Interviewer25:14

Okay, just to clarify at this point, you are saying this of your right mind while you're making these decisions, right?

W

Warren Buffett25:21

I hope so. But actually, I wrote the will a couple of years ago. And I will not knowingly change that will except for extremely important decisions because there's no question that I had my marbles when I wrote it.

I

Interviewer25:39

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about what happens now. You've talked about how this is really your children making the decisions, but in the announcement that you're putting out now, you increased each of your children's foundations the amount you're giving them by about 50%.

W

Warren Buffett25:57

Yeah, but for what we gave them last year, the Susan Thompson Foundation.

I

Interviewer26:00

But it's the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation that really is seeing the outsized gains. The amount of shares they received this year is tenfold what it was last year. Basically, they're getting all the money that would have gone to the Gates Foundation.

W

Warren Buffett26:17

Well, they're getting all the money that would have gone to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation for

I

Interviewer26:21

And then some.

W

Warren Buffett26:23

Would have survived. Right, and then some. But basically, the payout they're going to be getting this year in terms of what they can disburse is 4.5 billion dollars. That's how much the Gates Foundation got last year. Why so much more to the STB Foundation than the other three foundations, relatively speaking? Everybody gets more, but why that outsized amount?

The Foundation is what I would say totally my wife would have created and I would have approved of it. I mean, we were on the same page in all kinds of questions that aren't even questions anymore in terms of women's rights and civil rights. We were in sync. She took an interest in listening to everybody's story. That would be the last thing in the world I would want to do. She saw every individual as an individual, but she also saw them as a group. I saw them as a group. And I had other things that fascinated me more.

I

Interviewer27:27

This money that goes through, is this what you will anticipate seeing from this point on? In years past at Thanksgiving, you've given additional disbursements to the three kids' foundations. Do you plan to do that again this year?

W

Warren Buffett27:40

Yeah, I'm almost sure I will, but regardless, the other goes on. I'm more probable to die before Thanksgiving than any of my three children, and probably the probability of all three combined. But I also enjoy explaining why I take actions, just like I do in the annual report on Berkshire. I've got a didactic streak, which my partner Charlie Munger had. To us, the money was important in terms of what it could actually do for other people. It wasn't important for what it could do for me. I have not denied myself anything in life.

I

Interviewer28:37

If something happens that you're not here to make these decisions, does it revert to what you talked about last year in your will, where there is a new foundation that is created?

W

Warren Buffett28:49

A new foundation. And the three kids are in charge. It has to be unanimous consent among the three for anything they do.

I

Interviewer29:00

Does the STB foundation or the kids' foundations, do they have to spend the money in this fiscal year as was required of the Gates Foundation, or is this something where they can take their time and make their plans?

W

Warren Buffett29:11

They know my views on it, but they can do what they want. But if their wants get away from the basic principles far enough, you look at it again, but that isn't going to happen.

I

Interviewer29:25

Warren, you've spent most of your adult life thinking about philanthropy. How have your views changed over time? What would you like to see happen with this? I think about the Giving Pledge and what you all did. What's your perspective at this point?

W

Warren Buffett29:41

I have is that out of eight billion people, I may be one of the 10 luckiest in the world. And so I've been lucky and healthy to get to 95. I've been lucky in that the field that intrigued me and where I had some natural ability happened to be one that paid off in a way that nothing paid off like it. I've been a great violin player than

You know, anything else. It requires more talent than I have, but a different form of talent. Fortunately, I got exposed partly accidentally to what I liked to do very early on. That was just an accident. If my father had been a plumber, I would not have had the same advantage I had. So I was incredibly lucky. And then as life has gone along, I have seen how unbelievably unlucky some people have been. It is like, you know, we had accidents with the kids when they were young and all kinds of things can happen. They just didn't happen to us.

I

Interviewer31:03

All right, let's talk about a few other things while we have you.

W

Warren Buffett31:07

Yeah.

I

Interviewer31:07

Here. Is there more you want to say?

W

Warren Buffett31:10

But the whole idea of kings and queens and everything where you pass along for thousands of years the ability to live in any manner you wish, you know, while you say let them eat cake to the rest. [laughter] That is not the way the system should be if I had my way of designing a world. I can't change the design of the world, but I can nibble at the edges.

I

Interviewer31:39

And those are the same values that your wife Astrid and your kids all have, too?

W

Warren Buffett31:45

100% and I'm glad you mentioned Astrid because she feels she's extreme in this view as you can imagine. She's actually experienced more hardship in life than either Susie or I did because she was Latvian and came over in a boat to Ellis Island, didn't know who she was being assigned to, lived in foster homes, all kinds of things. So the accidents of birth are just so extreme. I've seen people that use those accidents to justify positions that are ridiculous in my view. That's the reason for encouraging philanthropy. You can't mandate it. It isn't plausible if you mandate it. Most people are a combination of lots of good instincts and lots of not-so-good instincts, including me. If you do things that appeal to their better instincts, they respond sometimes.

I

Interviewer33:03

And by the way, your point with the Giving Pledge, when you founded that with Bill and Melinda Gates, was to encourage people to give to anything, but not to try and tell them what to do with their money.

W

Warren Buffett33:13

Exactly. Exactly. And also decide when they would do it. A family that's got a family farm they've had for 100 years and they've all worked out, they're going to have a different view toward capital. They're all going to work hard. But they're going to have a whole different view to some guy that is writing options on Wall Street.

I

Interviewer33:43

Yeah. Okay, let's talk about a few other things that have happened maybe since we got the chance to sit down last in May. The first that I can think of is the massive position that Berkshire has developed and grown in Alphabet and Google shares. That's something that a lot of people have looked at and said, 'Okay, this is Greg's mark on how he's going to be changing the portfolio.' How did the Alphabet position come along?

W

Warren Buffett34:14

I initiated it, but I normally wouldn't give you that answer on something like that, but I will because it... But we, I am not doing anything that he doesn't approve of. He's not doing anything I don't approve of. We talk all the time. He's, well, every day. But he is the decider. Getting back to Alphabet or Google, it's probably number five or six.

I

Interviewer34:54

Well, I thought it was number three if you consider the $10 billion private placement that would go along with that because that would put it north of $31 billion.

W

Warren Buffett35:06

Yeah, but we've got the Burlington Northern Railroad, which is certainly worth far more money than that.

I

Interviewer35:13

Okay, so you're counting fully owned companies as well.

W

Warren Buffett35:16

I mean, we are always making the choice between whether we'll buy marketable securities or the company. We look at it the same way. There are some minor exceptions to that. We can't set dividend policy, for example, if we don't own it. But the chances of those being material, the important thing is to buy a good business and to buy it on the right terms and then get the right person to run it.

I

Interviewer35:41

Okay, but you've quickly grown a north of $30 billion investment in Alphabet. That puts it in terms of those companies that you own pieces of behind only Apple and American Express. So Coca-Cola would be smaller, Bank of America would be smaller. Okay.

W

Warren Buffett36:00

But if you take Coca-Cola, which we've owned 45 years, whatever it may be. We don't have a thing to do with running that business. But it's a very good business. When I say a very good business, I mean something that you can expect to own and earn high returns on capital over a long period of time. Now the question is, when you get into Google or any of the AI companies, you're putting out huge amounts of money. I can put huge amounts of money in government bonds and get 20 or 30 or 40 billion dollars a year in payments from them. So a good business is one that earns a lot more than the returns on essentially riskless investments, which you could define as Treasuries. But if you take something like American Express, most of the banks earn 13, 14% on capital. If I asked everybody to guess what American Express would get, they would come up with some figure similar, but it's so different that it earns 30% plus on capital and does not incur more risk in doing so than the banks that earn 13 or 14%. The trick in life and in investing is to find businesses that are going to earn high returns on capital for an extended period of time.

And that's what happened with Berkshire for a long period of time. Long period of time gets to be very important because those doubles later on are of very good numbers. But Charlie Munger, my partner for many decades, he just pounded the idea that it wasn't a good business just because it was doing sexy things or whatever it might be. But if it wasn't earning real cash that it would or be expected to do it in a very short period of time and just be able to distribute it if it wanted to, better yet if it could re-employ it as a business, it was even better. The one that had the ability to earn high returns but you couldn't deploy the excess capital of those returns.

I

Interviewer38:50

Okay, let me ask you though. Forever people have thought of you as somebody who doesn't invest in technology. And by the way, you've described yourself as somebody who doesn't invest in technology. Obviously, the biggest position in the Berkshire portfolio is Apple. A position that you put on, but at the time you called that a consumer company. Google you just called an AI company. So what happened?

W

Warren Buffett39:15

Google. The real question with Google and all of its competitors now is they're all laying out hundreds of billions.

I

Interviewer39:23

They're big cap expend the biggest.

W

Warren Buffett39:25

Yeah, and that's real money. If our railroad were to lay out 300 million or billion or 200 billion, that kind of money wasn't even put in the railroad business in terms of developing it. So they are playing that game now. They won't play that game with computer software.

I

Interviewer39:50

So when they were asset light, you didn't like them and the markets loved them. Now that they are...

W

Warren Buffett39:55

A mistake.

I

Interviewer39:55

Spending heavily on capex, a lot of shareholders don't like them as much because they don't...

W

Warren Buffett40:01

They're more likely to be a winner based on their record than probably 90% or 95% will get merchandised through Wall Street. Because Wall Street is the only thing sold something.

I

Interviewer40:15

Mhm.

W

Warren Buffett40:16

And I can't recall a report on Wall Street that really gets into the internal rates of return that the business is actually earning. What's more important is what a business is earning, but they ask all these questions about what will happen next quarter. It's ridiculous. Investing is coming up with... The probably the most successful long-term investor was Rockefeller. But look at what oil and gas has done over 150 for a couple of hundred years. So he kept compounding at a very good rate. Not as good a rate as Geico would have achieved in his early years because it's easier to do when you're small. You got to do it when you're large. You got the whole world looking at you trying to figure out how come those guys are doing it and we're not doing it.

I

Interviewer41:18

Why do you like Alphabet above all others and what made you initiate this position? What was the...

Eureka moment?

W

Warren Buffett41:24

I would say that I don't like it as well as at least four or five other businesses that we own.

I

Interviewer41:36

Other than Apple, the railroad...

American Express.

W

Warren Buffett41:40

Yeah, I'm going to get the whole priority, but...

I

Interviewer41:45

And of course you like it enough to make it a huge position.

W

Warren Buffett41:47

That way. Yeah. I mean, Berkshire earned high returns on capital without using the tricks of leverage or that sort of thing. I don't want to...

I

Interviewer41:57

But I'm talking about why Alphabet versus the other Magnificent Seven or the other hyperscalers who are doing the same thing, spending a lot of money. Amazon, Microsoft, whoever it may be to try and win in this position of AI.

W

Warren Buffett42:13

Well, I don't want to sit around knocking the others. They don't have any choice.

I

Interviewer42:18

To spend like this, you mean?

W

Warren Buffett42:20

Yeah, they're now playing a game in many cases where they're playing a game they don't want to play. IBM would have loved it if they just kept playing the game that IBM was playing in the '30s and '40s and '50s and '60s. Then somebody came along and said, 'We'll get a better result for you achieving the objective of all the customers you have because that's all you're going to have. Either have happy customers or you don't have customers over time.' The customer is not dumb. Wall Street can be very dumb. They can dream. But a guy with a grocery store can't dream. I worked in my grandfather's grocery store. We had one store in 1869 and we had one store in 1969. Other people were earning high returns on capital, some on a national scale. A&P, which people don't associate with anymore, in the 1930s they were number one, number one of trust busters in Washington. They had a very good hand. And that hand disappeared.

I

Interviewer43:46

So it's a different game. And you like this game, you understand this game more than you understood the game they were playing before. Is that fair to say?

W

Warren Buffett43:53

There's all kinds of games I don't understand, sure.

I

Interviewer43:56

But this game...

W

Warren Buffett43:56

Why should I expect to make money in all kinds of things I don't understand?

I

Interviewer44:02

Mhm.

W

Warren Buffett44:03

And...

I

Interviewer44:04

But that's what I'm getting at. What do you understand about this game at this point? Because most people would say he's never going to buy any technology stocks. And I think you've said the same thing yourself in the past.

W

Warren Buffett44:13

Yeah, but I have done it. Actually, one of my most successful companies I was associated with was in 1958. We started a company called Data Documents because a couple of fellows of mine read in the paper that IBM had a trust suit and had to divest 50% of the capacity of what was their best business. Everybody knew it was their best business. It so happens it ran out after 10 or 15 years. I knew some of the people that caused it to run out. But if you have a wonderful business, you are going to be subject to attack. So it's not a question of whether it was wonderful yesterday. The question is how long is it going to be wonderful?

I

Interviewer45:04

But that's what I think I love. People can try and pigeonhole you and say they know who you are and what you do. To me it looks like you're 95 turning 96 next month and you are still changing and following the game.

W

Warren Buffett45:19

Well, yeah, but it's easier for me. If somebody came along with a better candy, that would have more predictive value to me than if they came along and had a better way of doing something that 100 of their competitors would sneak in the plant at night to see how they got it all done.

I

Interviewer45:48

Let's talk about your largest position, Apple. You told us that you were thrilled with everything that Tim Cook had done. I don't know how well you know John Turnus at this point or what the company's doing. You still have a lot of faith in Apple?

W

Warren Buffett46:03

Well, there was no move they could make that would replace Tim that I would have liked.

I

Interviewer46:13

[laughter]

W

Warren Buffett46:14

That I mean, if you got somebody, you know, Stradivarius playing the violin for you, don't spend the next 300 years looking for another one. You've got one already. And of course Wall Street thrives on the idea that convincing you that if you just listen to them, they've got something that nobody else has. Which can't be true. It's ridiculous. But it works because America's been a wonderful place to invest money. The Dow industrials went high. When I bought my first stock, it just crossed 100. And now it's 52,000 or something. And you've got dividends in between. The village idiot could have made it from that point forward. So I've been in the right game. If I'd been in wheat speculation, wheat has gone from $3 to $5 over 200 years. It's a very simple business as long as you keep remembering that it's simple. Making it complicated can be crazy. At that point, you're gambling.

I

Interviewer47:17

[clears throat]

W

Warren Buffett47:17

So I've been in the right game. If I'd been in wheat speculation, wheat has gone from $3 to $5 over 200 years. It's a very simple business as long as you keep remembering that it's simple. Making it complicated can be crazy. At that point, you're gambling.

I

Interviewer47:52

But do you still like Apple?

W

Warren Buffett47:53

People's enthusiasm for gambling is enormous.

I

Interviewer47:56

You've talked about that over the last many years, probably since COVID. But you still like Apple. Back to the point.

W

Warren Buffett48:03

Yeah.

I

Interviewer48:03

Yeah.

W

Warren Buffett48:04

Yeah.

And I know more about Apple than I knew many years ago. But on the other hand, if you're Apple, you've got very smart people all over the world shooting and trying to figure out how to make sure that Apple's future is as bright as it is in the past. Look at the car companies. Henry Ford owned the car business for 20 or 25 years. He vertically integrated like you cannot believe. He drove costs down. He got the cost of Model T down to $285 and he always was decreasing prices while increasing wages. So he was... but he also was a little nuts in some ways and that did him in finally when he turned over the Model A and General Motors just came racing by. My friend Charlie Munger thought that General Motors was going to be the dominant company. Who could imagine attacking their dealer fleet and everything they had going for them? You've always got somebody shooting at you.

I

Interviewer48:45

Right.

W

Warren Buffett48:46

So he was... but he also was a little nuts in some ways and that did him in finally when he turned over the Model A and General Motors just came racing by. My friend Charlie Munger thought that General Motors was going to be the dominant company. Who could imagine attacking their dealer fleet and everything they had going for them? You've always got somebody shooting at you.

I

Interviewer49:14

[clears throat]

W

Warren Buffett49:15

You've always got somebody shooting at you.

I

Interviewer49:18

To that point, Apple brought a lawsuit against OpenAI just last Friday night, just last week. And basically accused OpenAI of trying to steal trade secrets.

W

Warren Buffett49:33

How do you say? Most companies would love to try to steal trade secrets. They wouldn't love getting caught, but if you really could dig deep in the hearts of managers, they'd like to steal secrets.

I

Interviewer49:48

[laughter]

W

Warren Buffett49:51

Wouldn't you? If you had a business and you were struggling along, and the guy next door was making money. I had a half interest in a Sinclair filling station at 30th and Radigan in Omaha when I was in my early 20s. I'd been to business school and knew all these things. The guy next door had the filling station and he was pumping 30,000 gallons a month and we were pumping 15,000 gallons a month. So I said, 'We're going to wipe this guy off the face of the earth.' A couple of years later we were selling 15,000 and he was selling 30,000. We gave up and closed up. I think he's still operating. People are playing for keeps in business.

I

Interviewer50:40

Yeah.

We talked about Coca-Cola briefly, the long-time position you've held for more than 45 years. There is a major lawsuit with the government that could look at action going all the way back to 1996 with Coca-Cola. The government, the IRS, has said that they owe them...

20...

20 billion dollars roughly.

W

Warren Buffett51:03

Of which they paid...

I

Interviewer51:04

I think they put 10 billion or so something in there.

W

Warren Buffett51:06

10 billion.

I

Interviewer51:07

Right. But we're going to hear about whether the activities, this has to do with overseas business, just some of the accounting that goes back and forth. Coca-Cola says that they thought they had an agreement in 1996 that stood with how they should behave. The government's now looking for more money and saying that's not the case. It's not just Coca-Cola that's riding on this. There's a lot of other American businesses who are doing the same thing.

W

Warren Buffett51:33

Huge number, which is why the derivative effects of the suit could be the biggest in American history.

I

Interviewer51:41

What do you think of this? With the understanding that you are a Coca-Cola shareholder, a large Coca-Cola shareholder. Was this an overzealous government looking for ways to raise more money? Was this a company that performed badly or behaved badly?

W

Warren Buffett51:56

I'm the one, you know, I've got an organ that applies to it. You know, that's why we have courts.

I

Interviewer52:03

Yeah. So you'll wait and see what happens with it. I take it you're watching this closely.

W

Warren Buffett52:08

Paying the extra money won't break Coca-Cola any more than anything I can think of would break Berkshire. I look at all I think about is the downside. The upside will take care of itself.

I

Interviewer52:27

We also have a new FOMC chairman, Kevin Warsh, who is taking a look at the economy. This week he's going to be speaking in front of Congress. A lot of questions about what he'll do with the markets, what he'll do with interest rates, and what that in turn means for the markets. You in the past have spoken about how interest rates are gravity and it determines where stock market prices are headed. So what do you think happens? What are you betting?

W

Warren Buffett52:52

I don't know what he'll do, but I would say that job is so complicated. I think the other day he was quoted as saying they have 950 economists when they could do 110. I admire him for taking on the job. I think he will do the best he can at achieving the job he was assigned to do, which is 2% inflation and maintaining maximum employment. My guess is that, just like some of the others that have preceded him, not all of them, but he would read that every morning. The dual mandate.

I

Interviewer53:34

The dual mandate of the Fed.

W

Warren Buffett53:35

The dual mandate. And he knows he can't be perfect at it. Just like I know I couldn't be perfect with taking people's money and earning super returns on it. But my guess is that people were right in realizing that I cared about what happened to their money. And I would say that the White House, he cares about the country. I think that's been true of a good many. It doesn't mean their decisions are always great, because sometimes the decisions are so tough. Imagine Paul Volcker getting death threats all the time. And others just think they know more than they do.

I

Interviewer54:23

But you think Kevin knows a lot and is a...

W

Warren Buffett54:26

He's a very... Yeah, I think he was a good choice.

I

Interviewer54:29

Okay.

W

Warren Buffett54:30

Which probably means the president will be mad.

I

Interviewer54:32

[laughter]

W

Warren Buffett54:33

Future presidents will be mad at him because future presidents are looking at the next election and he's not supposed to be looking at the next election.

I

Interviewer54:41

Right. You obviously don't come out and make calls on where the market's headed at any point in time, but you do make calls on market behavior and what makes sense to you and what doesn't. Do you think the markets make sense to you when there's so much riding on AI? Earnings have been very strong. The consumer looks like it's held in to this point, but how do you view it?

W

Warren Buffett55:05

Well, I think there are times when opportunities are just thrown at you so fast you can't believe it. And then there's other times when you're very lucky if you find one thing in a couple of years. It should always be that the latter is what prevails, but since humans love to gamble so much, there's more money in cultivating gamblers than there are cultivating investors. If somebody bought Berkshire 40 or 50 years ago, a guy would have made one commission. He should spend the rest of his time telling the client don't do anything with it. That's just not the way we can expect of humans. But every now and then you do find people who behave far better than other people.

I

Interviewer56:02

Fair to say though it's tougher to find values or find...

W

Warren Buffett56:05

It's tougher to find values when everybody is preferring gambling.

I

Interviewer56:10

Yeah.

W

Warren Buffett56:11

And from the standpoint of the state, we have discussed this, but from the standpoint of the state it's sort of disgusting because the state needs money for all kinds of things, roads, schools, you name it. They have found that they can clip people who are buying nothing but hope, selling them a payout with a payout ratio of 60% or something like that. If they weren't doing that, they'd have to have the income tax higher. It's a cynical sort of activity. I think the less you get cynicism between the governing body and the people they govern, you don't want people to be cynical about their system. But there's times when the system says, just be as cynical as you want because this is what I'm going to do, baby.

I

Interviewer56:59

[laughter]

W

Warren Buffett57:00

You know, just be as cynical as you want because this is what I'm going to do, baby.

I

Interviewer57:05

[laughter]

Let's go back very quickly. You touched on this. Part of the reason that you want the shares given out over the next 8 years is because you want your kids making these decisions. But the other part is that you don't feel like you necessarily have to hold on to these voting shares of Berkshire as long because you have faith in Greg.

W

Warren Buffett57:24

Yeah, exactly.

And if we didn't have faith, well, part of the reason I'm around is because we didn't have sufficient faith in anybody. We know all kinds of people, but if you were talking about Tom Murphy, I could have hired Tom Murphy, but the trouble was they were all older. All my friends were pretty much older, so it wasn't like I was in college and I could see when they had it and who was writing crib sheets on their short cuffs.

I

Interviewer58:11

But you feel that way with Greg.

W

Warren Buffett58:13

I feel 100% that way.

I

Interviewer58:15

Yeah.

W

Warren Buffett58:17

Yeah. I've seen him in a lot of situations. A lot of situations. I felt that way with Charlie. I felt that way with Tom Murphy. But you know, nobody expects you to pick up 25 husbands and have them all work out. Just finding one is pretty tough. There's the right sort. And then you make mistakes.

I

Interviewer58:41

Yeah.

W

Warren Buffett58:42

And then you make mistakes.

I

Interviewer58:44

Warren, how are you feeling today?

W

Warren Buffett58:47

Well, I broke a leg.

I

Interviewer58:49

What happened?

W

Warren Buffett58:50

A few weeks ago, which is really, I've been very lucky on that sort of thing. I haven't broken a leg in my life until now. But I feel good. I'm glad I was born. I'm glad I wasn't born in some other country. I'm glad that I wasn't born female. I really won the lottery. A lot of people think they won the lottery if they got a trust fund set up that takes care of them for their whole life and five generations thereafter. But I just wasn't raised that way. I think it's a good thing I wasn't. I haven't raised the kids that way, or more important, Susan didn't raise them that way.

I

Interviewer59:11

Yeah.

W

Warren Buffett59:12

And I'm glad I wasn't born in some other country. I'm glad that I wasn't born female. I really won the lottery. A lot of people think they won the lottery if they got a trust fund set up that takes care of them for their whole life and five generations thereafter. But I just wasn't raised that way. I think it's a good thing I wasn't. I haven't raised the kids that way, or more important, Susan didn't raise them that way.

I

Interviewer59:45

Well, I want to thank you for your time today.

W

Warren Buffett59:47

Oh, thank you.

I

Interviewer59:48

I appreciate it.

W

Warren Buffett59:49

And we're listening to business.

I

Interviewer59:52

[laughter]

W

Warren Buffett59:53

Thank you.

CNBC's Interview with Warren Buffett July 15th 2026 (1080p HD)

About Warren Buffett