BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY'S WARREN BUFFETT NEW INTERVIEW 2026

It's fun to be on.

Well, let me tell you first how I got into it. Because my first wife Susie was living in San Francisco and she said to me, 'This guy is real.' And this guy being Cecil Williams, who came to that church in 1963 and it was a dying church in a changing part of the neighborhood in San Francisco and they weren't glad to see him, the 100 or so parishioners that were left, but he turned it into something that became... it gave hope and life to people that the world had given up on. And I went on Sunday still expecting something less than that. And I watched Cecil and I could see what he was doing and he was for real. And so, Susie at some point said, why don't you do something to raise some money for him, you know, and so I think she actually selected the idea of the luncheon. And then we did the luncheon. The first three luncheons brought $25,000 each because they were localized. And then we got the idea of going on eBay and then we started getting bids from around the world and it just generally kept moving up. Although it wasn't every single year, but it just put us on the map. And as the final amount, $19 million was raised. Now that was kind of raised because it was the last one I think I was doing and a fellow bought it that had bought an earlier lunch but I didn't make any calls to him or do anything. It just turned out to be it inspires people and Smith & Wollensky as you know covered it in New York sometimes. That's often where you had the lunch with the winners of this and some of them wanted to be anonymous and a couple came to Omaha along the line because they had some special thing they wanted to talk about. But I think everybody felt they were glad they did it and I was glad to do it.

Well, I ran out of gas and I got to be what, 93 at that time or something like that. And it just same reason I gave up teaching. I taught every year from when I was 21 till 88 or '89. And there just came a period when your body said different things to you and you should turn it over to somebody just like I did at Berkshire. I mean it at different times on different things, but I and so we thought we had a continuation of it all set up and then for one reason or another it fizzled and so the last two years, well I think the first year some board member made up some members but basically the auction disappeared and so they haven't had the funds coming in. No. And Cecil Williams was about my age through all this and it got so I couldn't understand him on the phone or anything like that but all he wanted was just to continue and so I don't know where the idea came from exactly but I said I would do one more just to get it started again and to have Steph join us. I mean, in the Bay Area, it's just a natural.

I mean, who can say it better? I mean he's worked with the kids in Oakland. I mean these are kids between five and 15 or something like that and he plays basketball with them and I mean he's a terrific guy. I haven't met him personally. We had a long talk on the phone and it's his baby and he can carry it forth and incidentally whatever is bid this year I will make an equal contribution to both Glide and to his foundation. And you just go on to new heights. I mean, and Steph is the hero of millions and millions of people, you know, so I really think it'll work. I think it'll continue to be what Cecil hoped it to be. And it would have killed me to have it just die off and as much what Cecil poured into it himself, he believed everybody was worthwhile and the world had given up on these people and he may have started giving a little bit of food to them, but before he got through he was doing all these things at Glide. And he never gave up on anybody. And I know you said that Astrid really liked him too. Oh yeah. Well, it is my second wife and you couldn't help but like him. I mean, when you watched him up there with people that the world had given up on and he says to them, 'I'll feed you. I'll have a bed for you. We'll have a vocation for you. You know, we're not going to give up on you.' And never did.

Well, it's not much different except for the... I mean I go in every day to the office. Yeah, I go in every day to the office. I don't accomplish hardly anything. I mean in terms of... it just takes me way longer to do things and Greg is so good. It was kind of embarrassing how good he is because he has covered, you know, we've got about 200 businesses within Berkshire, you know, that came about and I can't name the managers' names or their wives' names and I haven't seen them, you know, in a long time. It was easier just to write the letter once a year and kind of do my own thing. Greg covers more ground in a day than I would in a week even when I was at my peak, let alone my present condition. So, it's a move that in many ways I could have done it earlier and Greg would have been better than I was, but you know, and I can still contribute just a tiny bit.

Yeah. Yeah. But I won't make any that Greg thinks are wrong and he'll run... he's starting to get a few calls and he'll call me about them and like me he doesn't like them, you know, but calls for deals, he'll keep me posted, yeah, well yeah it's investment bankers calling them back and they'll sell them, you know, they try and sell anything, but I cut him off in about 10 or 15 seconds and he spends more time with them, but I don't know where he gets his time because he plays hockey with us. I mean, it isn't like he's as fanatic as I was, you know, in terms of running the place, but with no more apparent effort, he just covers so many bases.

I don't know the exact number, but it's not much different than before. So, you know, it's probably north of $350 billion in cash and treasury bills. Yeah. So we bought $17 billion this week. $17 billion of T-bills. Of T-bills. Berkshire is the largest owner of T-bills. I think we're probably the largest bidder. And ironically, I got involved in Solomon because they bid for too many bills. And I don't think they'd get mad at us now if we bid for too many. But you're not supposed to go over 35% or something in the auction. And of course, you've been through the primary dealers. But I don't even know the mechanics that well. But one fellow in our office handles all the mechanics of the stocks and bonds we buy. Mark Millard. Yeah, exactly. And any place else they'd have 25 or 30 people that... He's down the hall about 20 ft and about every hour or hour and a half he brings me in what we've done and what Berkshire has done just in terms of the markets that day. Yeah, I call them before the market opens because I see what's been going on, you know, pre-market and probably change the limits only. I don't get lots of different stocks or anything like that, but every now and then I'll introduce something and I will change limit prices daily.

Well, Greg gets the sheet every day. Oh, he does too. He doesn't get it quite as fast as I get it. I mean, but it probably gets sent over at the end of the day or something of the sort. And if Greg differed with me on anything, we wouldn't be doing it.

Pardon me. You're still making new purchases. Got one tiny purchase, but we aren't finding things that we weren't finding them before.

Not substantially.

No. Three times since I've taken over... Sure, it's gone down more than 50%. I mean, if you look at the markets of... Oh, the worst probably was the 2007-8 period, although there was that one Monday when you had 21% in a day. I mean, this is nothing. I mean, it... Well, this is nothing to make you get excited and think there's huge valuation. Well, if they're five or six percent cheaper, that doesn't... we aren't in it to make five or six percent. I mean, but we aren't a big seller either. In the end, we own businesses. Sometimes they're wholly owned, sometimes they're partly owned. That's what I like to own. And two-thirds of our money or more is in our businesses. And we bought Occidental Chemical on January 3rd. That was $9.7 billion. And as far as I'm concerned, that's got some advantages, some disadvantages versus owning a stock, but it's got the same principles attached to it. It is a business and it's a business we expect to own, you know, indefinitely.

Yeah. And we get calls all the time and they're silly calls, but like I say, it takes me 5 seconds to say no. Greg's a little more polite than I am, but I just assume get the calls just to see what people are doing, but they aren't offering anything that's at an attractive price and what they want is a trade.

Yeah. If there is a big decline, we will deploy. I mean, but we won't... we will deploy it because stocks are attractive or businesses are attractive to us and we are not planning to sell them next week or next month. So, we want to be right on them, right? And we've had our American Express stock 30 years without having sold. Coca-Cola close to 40 years, not 35 years. And on the other hand, there's things I changed my mind on fairly quickly. But the goal is to own the businesses. And when we buy Occidental Chemical, we expect to own that 50 years from now. You know, the world can change in some way, but that is... we do not buy that with a thought of resale.

Yeah. Well, I sold it too soon. But I bought it even sooner. So it worked out. Yeah. I think we've made over a hundred billion dollars in that position. No, no, no. I don't have any ability to predict what stocks will do next week or next month. And I will buy them if they're cheap. I'll buy a whole lot of them if they're cheap and I think I really understand the business. And Apple is still our largest single investment.

Yeah. Well, if I didn't like it, I can sell it. Yeah. No, I can. And I think it's a remarkable... it's better than any business we own outright. Now, we own a railroad that's worth more money than our Apple position, for example. They're both looked at the same way. I mean, they're both businesses. I expect the... I think it's more predictable in a certain sense that the railroad will be around 50 or 100 years from now, but it doesn't earn the rate remotely on capital that Apple does. I mean, Apple is a business that you know, you've got one probably and your kids have got them. I mean, you know, it's not one, we've got like 20 of them. Yeah. Yeah, with the devices. And actually the Bell Telephone Company was that way at one point, but they were regulated.

I think the consumer is in love with them too much. I don't think Washington will do anything that really destroys something that every one of their voters likes. And they're using themselves. I mean it's a remarkable product that way. Just think of something that is as useful as the Apple is. I mean it's... Tim Cook has done better with the hand Steve Jobs handed him. He couldn't have done what Steve Jobs did, but Steve Jobs handed him a hand that Steve would not have done as well. Steve picked him. I mean, when you get right down to it. And Tim was a fantastic manager and he's a good guy. And somehow he gets along with everybody in the world, which is, you know, that's a technique I wouldn't have, for example, and certainly my partner Charlie Munger wouldn't have had it, but I'm very happy to have it be our largest holding. I was not happy to have it be as large as almost everything else combined.

Although at a price I was... and it could... not impossible that Apple would get to a price we would buy a lot of it but not in this market. I mean this just isn't going to happen in this market.

Depends on the stock. Some stocks now generally speaking they move together to quite a degree but I don't think I know what the market's going to do. I do think I've got a reasonable idea of what a business is worth. I have no idea what the stock market's going to do and I don't think anybody else does either.

Consumer company. Because I'm... I wouldn't be any good at it and besides I'm so late to the game. I am not learning new things. Well, I still don't know what to do with the phone, but I just recognize the fact that you're going to have one and your kids are going to want one and it is a terribly useful. I mean, it's incredibly useful. And you get something that's useful and offered worldwide and to some extent you're a little worried about maybe moving your photos from one system to another. And all I had to do was go out to the Nebraska Furniture Mart and talk to the customers and that's what I did 60 years ago with American Express when they looked like they were, you know, done for on the salad oil scandal. And I went down to the one National Bank and I said, 'Are you getting a premium for American Express tickets?' They could sell their travelers checks for more than Bank of America, Barclays, everybody had and they were getting a premium at the same time that everybody else was worried about them getting out of business. And the same thing when they actually started their card, they were going up against Diners Club and Carte Blanche, who had come first. And they came on later and instead of coming in at a cut price, they came in at a price above the competition. That says a lot about how consumers felt about American Express.

Well, if I were at the Fed, the thing I'd worry about always is, you know, you're the reserve currency of the world. I mean, so you've got very smart people, very sophisticated people. The American dollar looks, you know, like nothing could happen to it. I don't see how anything could happen to it. But if it does happen to it, I wouldn't want the responsibility of running the Fed. I mean, the world will be dependent on it doing it. And last time in 2007 and '08, you had Congress that essentially felt they knew more about it than the Secretary of Treasury. And so they really gummed things up when they turned down TARP the first time. And I mean it was... I think now people better understand what the Fed can print money. The Fed can print money and we have a president, President Trump, who would like to see the Fed cut rates. Would you cut rates if you were there right now? I don't know what I'd do there. I mean, I think that Jay Powell, when the epidemic broke out, I think he acted in March of whatever, 2020. And I think if he'd waited two or three weeks, it would have been a disaster. Once the dominoes start toppling, they just start toppling. And that line is shorter than anybody thinks and it topples faster. And I think he did exactly the right thing and he did it even stronger than Volcker did, you know. I mean, he and Volcker are my heroes at the Fed.

Well, I wish they had a zero inflation target, right? But I mean once you start saying you're going to tolerate 2% that compounds pretty dramatically over time and you're saying to people if you're getting less than 2% on your money you're going backwards and actually if you pay tax you may pay tax on the 2%. I mean I don't like that particular goal but... so inflation is maybe what you'd be more concerned about. I mean that's what Alan Greenspan always said. Yeah, I would care about inflation. I would compare... what I really would care about is the stability of the banks. Yeah. I mean the banking system is in some senses very strong in other senses very fragile. I mean JP Morgan in the last couple annual reports reported doing $10 trillion of business per day. Now that's an unsecured policy. Now they know what they're doing. Believe me. I mean, there's nobody smarter than Jamie Dimon but I didn't want during the 2008 period, I didn't want anything unsecured, you know, out there for a day. I mean, who knew? Nobody was any good, you know? I mean the world is very interconnected and everybody panics. I mean, you know they may say they don't but you can call the biggest investment banking firms and they know and they say well they don't answer the phone even if things get bad enough and if they do answer the phone they say 10 bid 20 offered subject.

Yeah. And when liquidity disappeared and that was someday and it just kept coming and most of the specialist firms which then counted for more in terms of the stability of the markets they were broke. I mean, as I remember, they went around to their banks and said, 'Just don't pull the loans,' you know, but they were supposed to keep making markets, but people just kept hitting the bid. And you can widen the spread out. You got circuit breakers now, all kinds of things. But when people are scared, they're scared. And people... if you yell fire in a crowded theater everybody around the... it still pays to be people to the door, you know, and I get trampled, you know, so I will stand back there and say everybody stay calm, you know, but that's because I can't run fast. On the other hand, when people come back into the theater they come in one at a time they know they don't have to get... But when people panic, they panic.

It's all parts of the banking system because they all affect each other and the troubles from one can spread over to another and well, you saw what happened. I mean in 2008... but at risk of potentially... I don't want people to say that you are commenting on what's happening in the private credit situation right now. What do you think of the private credit situation right now? Are there enough concerning issues there that you worry that it could cause a contagion in the... I don't think I know. I do not think I know what... but I therefore I want to be prepared for anything and therefore we will always have cash around and we'll have treasury bills. We won't have money market funds and we didn't have them in 2008. We won't have commercial paper in 2008. There's just one thing that's legal tender and you know if you own treasury bills and we have known... we don't own treasury bonds way out. I mean but every Monday the treasury has to sell bills and as long as they got to sell, you know, X billions worth of bills. I mean they can print some money to do it and they'll do it.

Sure. No, I always want to have... Yeah. And I never want to buy anything just because people think the market is going up. Yeah. I mean, the idea that people think they know what the market's going to do is just crazy. I mean, the idea that they would shout out to the world, you know, something they really knew. I mean, that's like saying if they had gold, found gold in their backyard, they'd come on television and say, 'Here's where the gold is in my backyard,' you know? I mean, they're selling something.

Well, they know that there's a certain... I mean, there's people in the United States and other parts of the world, but you've seen how much they like to gamble. And basically, you have this incredible cathedral called the American economic system. Nobody's seen anything like it. I mean, it's the cathedral of all cathedrals, but attached to it is a casino, and people can walk back and forth between the two. And believe me, people like to gamble. I mean, they gamble with the odds against them in the market. They can actually gamble if they... Well, they really aren't gambling if they do it, but I mean, if they just buy a stock and sit for 50 years, if they got a group of them, they're going to do fine. I mean, the American capitalism system works. And betting against the house does not work. I mean, it's just so simple. But people don't like to gamble. I mean, when you say gambling, are you talking on my honeymoon in 1952? Yes. We went through Las Vegas, Susie and I, we just got in my aunt Alice's car and we drove and we went through Las Vegas at the time and I watched all these people were dressed well and they'd flown on jets. They'd flown, you know, for many hours, spent much money and everything else to go and pull handles, you know, or do something that was mathematically dumb. And I thought, 'This is a land of opportunity.' You know, I told him we were going to get rich. I mean, how can you have people who have perfectly decent IQs rushing to do dumb things, which they do? And industries build on it. Now, it's become legalized. And the more they open it up, the more people like to do it. They like to do it in the stock market. And actually in the...

Stock market, at least they got a favorable expectancy if they just sit tight. But they don't sit tight, of course, if they're gamblers.

Well, I don't think you can stop it once you open it up. And once the states found out that they could pay out 60 cents on the dollar or something like that, whatever, they may have different systems for different states. There was one state it was legal in when I was a kid, and we've been around for hundreds of years. But then once people saw how that was working, other places took it up. And of course, rich people love it because they don't have to pay. I mean, to the extent that the states raise money from people where the dollar really means something to them, it actually relieves the taxes on me or other rich people. I mean, it's not direct, but it's the net effect. So, I don't like things that make a sucker out of people.

Yeah. I don't like them. I particularly don't like them when the government sponsors them. I don't think the government should play its... I don't think the function of the government is to play its people for suckers.

It's a tax on stupidity. But I'm not mad at people that are stupid. I'm mad at... No, I really am not. I mean, you can't help it if you're, to some extent, if you're human beings. I mean, you're geared that way when somehow it's developed within the humans. I don't like it when the government that they elect decides they're going to profit off that sort of activity. And I particularly... I just think it's kind of cynical. I don't think you should have a cynical government. I mean, that's...

Well, it means the two oil positions we have, Chevron and Occidental, go up a lot. But that doesn't mean I can go around predicting what'll happen next. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow over there.

I think it's the problem. I think it should... Well, I'll put it this way. When I went to school, grammar school, they told me the sun was going to burn out in four and a half billion years. I took that pretty philosophically. I mean, I got to handle that. And now you've got nine countries, including a guy in North Korea. I mean, and there will be something happen. And we worried enormously about it when there were two and we had perfectly... we had really pretty sane leaders in Kennedy and Khrushchev. I mean, you were not dealing with unstable people or anything like that. And the ships turned around, but people were hiding under their desk with two... I mean, just think how you feel with North Korea having it and Iran wanting to get it. I mean, it is... and I don't have an answer for that. I mean, we did the right thing in 1938 or 1939. You can go look at it, it's all over the internet. The most important letter ever written. And Leo Szilard could not get the message to... he was a famous nuclear physicist, terrific one, very funny too. And he couldn't get the message to Roosevelt, but he knew if Einstein signed the letter that it would get there. And he finally got Einstein to sign the letter. And that letter was a month before the Germans started rolling into Poland. And I don't think Roosevelt understood U-235 any better than I do. I mean, you know, but he knew if Einstein signed it, he better do something. And the funny thing is, of course, he was doing it because he was worried about the Germans getting it. And it was actually used on the Japanese, but we haven't learned to live with it. Now, we've gone 80 years since then. We've had a lot of close calls. I mean, we've had training tapes put in there that almost got the president to do something. They've had them. I mean, there is no way that the planet has an expectancy of 500 years now when it was 4.5 billion when I was a kid. And we had to do it. I'm not faulting anybody. My dad was in Congress. He would have voted for it. I mean, everybody rejoiced on D-Day, you know. I mean, but there was no way we could undo it.

But I would be... I would be for one way or another if I were the president of the United States. I don't want to be president of the United States. I wasn't sorry. I one time asked one president. I said, you know, if the Soviets had launched, so they already were in the air, and our policy was mutually assured destruction, would you have told Strategic Air Command unleash ours knowing that it wasn't going to... I mean, it was going to just kill millions and millions and millions more people and add to a super polluted atmosphere that who knows what was going to happen. I mean...

The answer... Well, this president said, he said, 'I thought about that every day.' Because some major shows up at midnight and says, 'We have incontrovertible... This is not geese above the North Pole. This is not a training tape that got put in by mistake. We know they're in the air.' And you've got 10 minutes to make a decision, Mr. President. What do I tell SAC to do? Do we unleash ours? And I used to be on the SAC advisory board. Believe it or not. But that was for political purposes as they put people on naturally because they were always looking for more money and they just figured that, and I don't blame them.

The president said, 'I thought about it every day during the time I was in office.' He was the next president... but did not give an answer on what he actually... No, he said, 'I think the answer is yes. I would tell him to do it. That is the policy of the United States of America.'

I would say that one way or another in the next 100 years, maybe it's 200 years, who knows? But one way or another, something will happen that cause it to be used. And we can't take what's out there now. And if you thought it was dangerous with the Soviets and us with Khrushchev who was a perfectly rational guy, probably Kennedy, just wait till we're dealing with the guy in North Korea, then criticize his haircut or something. I mean, or I would say the most dangerous thing is actually somebody that's got their hand on the switch who is dying themselves or is facing enormous embarrassment if you're somebody go...

Yeah.

It is. Yeah. It's just that I don't know the answer for it. But I do know that it'll be more difficult if Iran has the bomb than if they don't.