Watch Greg Abel preside over the full 2026 Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting

Yeah. This is not my show today, but there are two anniversaries that we're kind of celebrating today. One is the fact that the board has had what I will generously call a refreshment which they voted and you couldn't have made a better decision. They did it unanimously. It surprised all the board when I announced them last year except for Susie and that's been 100% successful. Greg is doing everything I did and then some and he's doing it better in all cases and he's the right person. So that decision we score 100% on.

But there's another anniversary today that I'd like to spend just a minute telling you about because about 10 years ago, we made a commitment to essentially move 10% of the resources of Berkshire Hathaway. We turned it over to another person who was not that well known at the time. And we did that by spending roughly $35 billion buying stock in Apple Corp. And we were going to have that under the management. We're turning that money over to the management essentially of Apple to make Berkshire look good and without any work by us, which is our preferred way of operating. And I would like to report that 10 years later several things are happening. One is the 35 billion counting dividends realized appreciation unrealized appreciation. But that has turned into 185 billion pre-tax and I didn't have to do a damn thing. I mean, so it's, you know, we're very big around here on having other people do the work and collecting the money, but that has been a success and we do look at marketable securities as being businesses. That doesn't mean we hold all of them forever, but we still our largest holding is Apple. And Apple has a very interesting history that some of you may be familiar with. But one item is they're observing an anniversary themselves. I think just within the last week or so. They celebrated their 50th anniversary and you know 50 years seems like a long time but Apple seems like a very new company and when Tim Cook went into the top position at Apple he succeeded Steve Jobs and you know Steve Jobs was everybody in America knew his name and not many people knew Tim's name. And Apple had had this roller coaster experience where the two Steves had started in a garage or something 50 years earlier and then I'm not sure how many of you know but Steve was thrown out for a while. He came back in. He did these marvelous things in terms of developing products. And then he had an untimely death and everybody said who's going to manage Apple when Steve Jobs isn't around and probably just a very few percentage points of American investors had even heard of Tim Cook and we in effect Tim took over about 14 years ago when Steve died but when we made our investment and turned over 10% of the resources of Berkshire we were turning it over to Tim and as I say, he has turned that into 185 billion or something pre-tax, which we won't bother to compare to our record with. And but Tim has announced that he's retiring as well. That's an announcement that's just been made in the last couple of years. And so I think it's appropriate if Tim would take a bow and our shareholders would say thanks to him. That's Tim is right by me. How would you like to step into the shoes of Steve and come through with his record? I mean, it's one of the miracles of American business management. And so anyway, thank you, Tim. And I'm going to turn things back to Greg and we'll go meeting.

I thank you for the opportunity to appear before this subcommittee. I would like to start by apologizing for the acts that have brought us here. The nation has a right to expect its rules and laws to be obeyed. And at Solomon, certain of these were broken. Almost all of Solomon's 8,000 employees regret this as deeply as I do. And I apologize on their behalf as well as mine. My job is to deal with both the past and the future. The past actions of Solomon are presently causing our 8,000 employees and their families to bear a stain. Virtually all of these employees are hardworking, able, and honest. I want to find out exactly what happened in the past so that this stain is borne by the guilty few and removed from the innocent. To help do this, I promise to you, Mr. Chairman and to the American people Solomon's wholehearted cooperation with all authorities. These authorities have the power of subpoena, the ability to immunize witnesses, and the power to prosecute for perjury. Our internal investigation has not had these tools. We welcome their use. As to the future, the submission to this subcommittee details actions that I believe will make Solomon the leader within the financial services industry in controls and compliance procedures. But in the end, a spirit about compliance is as important or more so than words about compliance. I want the right words and I want the full range of internal controls. But I also have asked every Solomon employee to be his or her own compliance officer. After they first obey all rules, I then want employees to ask themselves whether they are willing to have any contemplated act appear the next day on the front page of their local paper to be read by their spouses, children, and friends with the reporting done by an informed and critical reporter. If they follow this test, they need not fear my other message to them. Lose money for the firm and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm and I will be ruthless. I welcome your questions.

GEICO started out 90 years ago by trying to make things simple and giving a great price and service to customers. And when you think about it, today is exactly the same thing. We're just continuing to try and perfect that and make it a little better every day, a little faster, a little easier. I'm Nancy Pierce and I became CEO of GEICO in December of 2025. Prior to that, I was the chief operating officer, but I've just had my 40th anniversary with GEICO. I started as a claims associate in 1986 right out of college and I've just had the pleasure over many, many years of working in I think just about every department or every sector that GEICO has. So while I started in claims, I've been in pricing, I've been in product management, I've been in underwriting, I've had an opportunity to run operations in different parts of the country. But what really has kept me all these years and what has inspired me and I think inspires all 30,000 people at GEICO is every day we're delivering for customers and we're doing something for them. We're saving them money on a product that everybody has to have but maybe you don't necessarily want to use it. But when you do need to use it, that's really the moment of truth. And for us to be able to do that and to do it in a way that saves people money and gives that outstanding customer service, that's what excites me every day. And the reason that we have customers and will continue to grow is just keeping that as our north star. And if we do that, I think GEICO will be very successful over the next 20 years.

GEICO was founded in 1936 by Leo and Lillian Goodwin and their idea was to come direct to consumers and to cut out the middleman and to have much better cost and much better service for those customers. So in 1951, Benjamin Graham took an investment in GEICO and of course one of his students was Warren Buffett and that's when Warren really started to think about GEICO and to deeply try and figure out what we were doing and met with the leadership of GEICO and that was one of his first very big investments, his personal investments, and then later he started investing Berkshire Hathaway shares and by 1996 he owned all of GEICO. From that beginning, we now insure millions of cars, trucks, RVs, campers, etc. We're in all 50 states. And we try and be there wherever the customer needs us. That's always been sort of number one. I think from the first time I met Warren or Greg, they always start by talking about integrity and reputation and making sure that you're doing the right thing for customers. So, it's something we live and breathe every day at GEICO and it's absolutely a big, big part of our culture. Obviously, Berkshire Hathaway was founded in some ways on insurance and being wholly owned has just been terrific for GEICO and terrific for our customers over the years because it really allows us to invest in our business and to make long-term decisions, not quarterly or annual decisions on what's best for growing our business. And you know, obviously Berkshire has many other insurance companies besides GEICO and we do work together with them. GEICO sells many of their products today and we continue to look and bring more of them onto the GEICO platform.

There are always cycles in insurance. Sometimes there's bad weather. It's just making sure that the company's prepared for all of those things and to deliver on that promise that we make to customers when they buy that policy to be there in their hour of need. So, we take that very, very seriously. If you're involved in an auto accident, the last thing you want is to go weeks and weeks and weeks before you get paid and before the whole thing is resolved. So, we really strive to do that now in minutes where possible as opposed to in days or hours. Nobody really wants to spend a lot of time with their insurance company, but when they do, we want to make sure that they're getting the very best service as fast as they possibly can. So, when I think about innovation, it's really about things that are going to allow us to handle claims faster than anybody else in the industry. What I'm really focused on is our customer loyalty and retention. So, we want to improve those. It's a very competitive market right now. Everybody has come out of sort of an unusual period out of COVID in regards to frequency and severity. So I think everybody now, all of our competitors are in the mode to try and grow and the best way for us to grow is to retain every one of our customers.

I think that what I'd like to communicate is just that every day 30,000 people at GEICO go to work in support of millions and millions of customers. And I want you to know that that's what the GEICO team is delivering for Berkshire day in and day out. It's a reputation of doing the right thing, saving customers money and just giving outstanding service.

Sure, thank you. Tokio Marine and Fire is the largest non-life insurance company in Japan. They've been doing business for more than 100 odd years and are clearly regarded as a blue chip company in the international arena altogether. They're clearly number one in Japan. Every insurance company would like to be associated with them. They have a very, very high reputation in Japan and globally as well. We being in the insurance business for the last god knows how many years, we've tried year after year to try and get a relationship going with Tokio Marine and Fire. It has not been easy because one of the things we bring to the business is a capital partner and Tokio Marine were cash-rich and they really never needed capital in a big way. They have been expanding in Japan. Now given the limited growth in Japan, they've looked overseas and over these last 8, 10 years they've really got most of the low-hanging fruit overseas that they would like to get. Nevertheless, they are keen and they are hungry for business elsewhere outside Japan. And last year we got a chance to spend some time with them and talk to them in very general terms about what the two of us could be doing and should be doing with each other.

After that initial conversation which probably took place nearly a year ago, things moved fairly quickly. So to sort of get to the bottom line, in March we finally announced a transaction with them. That transaction has three legs to it. I'll describe to you each one of them and that'll give you an idea of what the relationship is right now and we've got a long way to go of course. Firstly, we bought some stock in the company, just a simple transaction, we wrote a check for 1.8 billion US and we got 2.5% of the stock of Tokio Marine and Fire. That was one part of the transaction. Secondly, they have a good and profitable book of business in terms of what they write in Japan and elsewhere. We took a piece of the business, just that property casualty business that they write and we compensated them for their efforts in getting the business, originating the business and running the business, but we get a slice of their business god knows for several years down the road. And the third piece was a sort of strategic agreement between the two of us. It is not spelt out in a lot of detail and normally I would be very, very concerned about having open-ended strategic transactions, but Tokio Marine, they are a quality company. In fact, they remind me of a phrase that JP Morgan used, I don't know how many years ago, doing first-class business in a first-class way, and that is Tokio Marine in the insurance industry. We have a general statement that we'll work with each other. We'll coordinate when it comes to finding opportunities elsewhere, running businesses operationally. And that is something that will evolve over time in terms of who's going to bring what to the party. And I certainly hope this serves as a springboard for both of us to move on to the next plateau.

Hi, my name is Warren. Warren from Omaha. I've recently undergone a, let's call it a significant change in role and I have, well let's just say, a not insignificant portion of my net worth tied up in Berkshire stock. Now Greg, I've been watching this company for a while, long time, a very long time, and I've been telling people that I have no intention of selling a single share. Not one. So, my question is a simple one. I'm 95 years old. I've got nothing but time and cherry coke and I want to know just so I have something to tell my fellow shareholders, why should they hold their Berkshire shares for the long term?

Anyway, Greg, I'll let you take it from here. I've got a few things on my plate. Actually, excuse me. I need to take this. Someone may want to sell me their business. I hope it's an elephant.

Okay. So cyber is something we worry about in the insurance operation at two levels. Firstly, there is a huge demand by people in business all over the world who are interested in buying protection against some kind of a cyber incident. We have been slow in terms of, consciously we have been slow in terms of entering that class of business as an underwriter. The reason for that is firstly on cyber I find it very difficult to have some meaningful method to assess and model the aggregation. People will tell you we've got it under control and they'll show you all kinds of models but nothing that I can really hang my hat on in terms of we really have a good feeling for what the aggregate exposure is because any risk we take on, the first question we ask ourselves, how bad can bad be? And I'm not sure we can answer that question as well as we should. So the second reason is cyber has been a very popular, fashionable product in these last several years. We have not played in it. Now, as it turns out, there haven't been very many cyber losses. So, people who've taken on cyber risk have actually made profits and as a result of which the premiums that cyber insurance commands has been coming down over time. So, we'd hate entering a line of business where prices are coming down. So we're sort of sitting on the sidelines and I'm not sure when, but I'm pretty certain that the day will come when we will have a fairly significant role to play in cyber. Secondly, we being a large company are exposed to cyber perils ourselves. We try and do the best we can. I think we are as good as anyone else. Now, cyber insurance is very highly regulated by the regulators and we've been consistently above what the regulations call for. So, I think we're doing the best we can, but I cannot be categorical about it.

Thanks, Greg. This first question, Ajit, let's follow up with the AI. This is slightly different though. This comes from Billy D. Ross in Ardsley, New York, who writes, 'In an era of increasingly complex risk models and AI tools, where does human judgment still provide Berkshire a competitive advantage?'

Okay. Becky, can you just repeat the last part of the question?

Yeah. Where is human judgment still a competitive advantage for Berkshire when you consider AI tools that are out there?

Yeah. So AI also is very fashionable right now. People are jumping into it from the insurance space and from the non-insurance space. And clearly if AI becomes reality as it's being projected then there's no question about it. It'll be a huge game-changer. Right now what we are seeing is AI being used as a productivity tool, as a mechanism for reducing labor cost and doing routine, repetitive things. I do not think AI will reach a point where you can make a tradeoff on things like pricing, settling a claim. That is still years away and I tend to be skeptical. I'll be surprised if AI can solve that problem for you. So if you're counting on AI telling you which stock to buy and which one to sell, I don't think that's going to happen.

Yep. That's exactly. So using it within the businesses but well aware it's evolving I think is a fair way.

Hi everyone. My name is Levia and I'm from Irvine, California. Born in Qing China. And I really want to say it's my honor to see both Mr. Buffett and Mr. Abel today. I really want to say Mr. Buffett, your speech has helped me get through many, many dark moments in my life and stand back up not only in investment. I really appreciate you. Okay. My question is, as a young investor navigating both uncertainty and rapid technology change, I often struggle to balance patience with action. How would you personally distinguish between the two, please?

Anything you'd like to add?

No.

Becky.

This question is for Greg, and it comes from Mark Lunder in Miami, who says he's been a Berkshire shareholder for 30 years. He said, 'Greg, given your background as a business operator, which differs from Warren's roots as a public market investor, could you share how you balance your time between overseeing the wholly owned subsidiaries and the $288 billion equity portfolio? Also, does your operator lens change how you evaluate new investment opportunities compared to Warren's historical approach?'

Yeah. I really think capital allocation and operating businesses are two sides of the same coin. And a comment that Warren had made several years ago, I think, goes a long way when he made the comment saying that a good capital allocator will make a good operating manager and vice versa.

Well said, Ajit.

I didn't say it.

Well said, Warren.

My name is Jackie Han from China, currently working in Toronto, Canada. This is my ninth Berkshire meeting, so I guess I'm officially a repeat customer, and like most shareholders, I plan to stick around for the long term. Over the years, Mr. Buffett has often said that capital allocation is Berkshire's most important responsibility. Today we are in a very different environment. Interest rates are higher. Cash actually earns something again. And competition for quality assets has increased globally. The station lady actually read my mind a little bit. Actually, my question is how should long-term investors think about their capital allocation approach today when patience has a real opportunity cost? And also for Mr. Abel, as you step further into this role, how do you personally balance patience versus action, especially when standards are shaped by decades of Mr. Buffett's track record? Thank you.

Yeah. Please, I should have—thank you. You know, insurance, much like investing, is a game that requires patience, and it is very difficult to get people to sit back and do nothing. When I recruit people, my modus operandi, I tell them right up front, I said, I tell them your job is to say no. You will get bombarded with deals day in and day out, but your base case is just say no. I said, every now and then you will come across a deal that'll hit you with a 2x4 and it'll be screaming money. That's when you come to me and we'll make a decision whether to do it or not. Yeah, you know, all kidding aside, it is very difficult to sit there and do nothing while everyone else is being wined and dined by brokers and taken to London. So I think the real test of being successful, certainly in insurance and therefore investing as well, is the ability to say no.

Thanks, Greg. This question is for Ajit, and the writer is Mindy Wasserman. The question is: how and when can you offer insurance to ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz?

I mean, the short answer is, depends on the price.

Yeah, there's a lot of chatter, there's a lot of need. Fortunately, there's enough capacity in the insurance world today that would like to write that risk for no other reason but people are sitting on excess capital and they'd like to find a way to deploy that excess capital. We ourselves have taken a small participation in a program that's being put in place so as to write insurance for the ships in the Strait of Hormuz. We haven't written any deals as yet. It's still being fine-tuned, but if we can get our terms in terms of the underwriting decisions and the fact that the US Navy will escort these ships, we have put a price on which we will be comfortable underwriting that risk, but nothing's happened as yet.

Good morning, Mr. Abel. My name is Josh, and I'm from China. So my question is about the key investing principle, staying within your circle of competence. I imagine you and Mr. Buffett each have a somewhat different circle of competence. So how do you plan to manage the portfolio established by Warren Buffett? Thank you.

Anything there?

This question is for Greg, but I think it's important that you take it while Ajit's on stage with you so he can answer some of it, too. It comes from Zachary Phelps from Medfield, Massachusetts, who writes, 'Ajit Jain has been described by Warren as irreplaceable. He's helped build one of the greatest insurance operations in history and has been the backbone of Berkshire's underwriting discipline. How are you thinking about succession planning for Ajit and the insurance business? And how do you ensure that the underwriting culture, the insurance moat, is preserved in the next generation of leaders?' And Greg, I'll just add for compression's sake, I did get questions about your succession planning, too. So maybe you can add that in there.

I don't know how I'm supposed to take that.

Yeah. So in terms of the culture and the underwriting orientation, which is so critical, there are a few simple rules that I've followed over the years, and it's come at a cost, but I think net-net is still a positive. Let me just lay it out in terms of how I think about this issue. Firstly, we have a very small number of people who actually get involved in the decision-making. My top three lieutenants, operation, forgetting about companies that we acquire, we have been together for 35-plus years now, and we've become friends. And the other thing, to minimize any kind of competition among these people and stepping on each other's toes, we have a compensation plan that gives fixed salaries, fixed compensation to the individuals, as opposed to having some complex formula that results in they get the upside and Berkshire gets the downside. I try and stay away from that as much as possible. Usually, really a problem with all the compensation plans I've seen. Then the other thing that is important is people need to have experienced going through a tough time and the fact that it doesn't penalize them. We insulate them from the ups and downs of the marketplace so that they feel secure and they do the right thing. And yeah, so those are the elements that I think allow us to have a long-term orientation and not get sucked into the latest fashion of the day and just do stuff for the sake of doing.

Yeah. The compensation thing. Having seen all these programs over the years, I remember having mentioned to Warren at some point in time. I said, Warren, you give me a compensation plan, I'll game it. You'll not be able to figure it out for years down the road. And that's the problem, together with the fact that if the employees lose, they want to go back and renegotiate the plan, and if they win, they're happy to walk away with everything. So that's the big challenge.

Hello, Mr. Abel. My name is Kansas, and I attend Elkhorn South High School in West Omaha. Mr. Abel, you may remember me from last year, and I'm here to question your company's business model again. It is compromising my future and the planet's future. Mr. Abel, in your first letter to shareholders, you wrote, 'Berkshire Hathaway avoids businesses that undermine the fabric of society,' but Berkshire's electric utilities continue to invest in fossil fuels that are driving the climate crisis. Can you tell me and my graduating class when Berkshire Hathaway Energy will retire their fossil fuels, transition to renewable alternatives, and stop causing irreparable damage to the environment and my generation's future? Thank you.

Yeah. So right now in the insurance sphere, the supply is greater than the demand, and that makes it very difficult to be able to carve out a deal that rationally is good for the buyer and the seller. When supply is greater than demand, then it's the seller that loses. So because of that, we haven't been active in getting involved in writing insurance for these new facilities, the data centers, the hyperscalers. Yeah. But clearly there is a surge in demand, and as long as supply doesn't go crazy, we will get a few days in the sun sometime in the next few years.

Yeah, thank you, Greg. And first of all, thank you for the opportunity to speak today and talk about our great company. It's a pleasure to do that, Greg. So, thank you. You know, we absolutely recognize that it's important for us to run an efficient operation, to have a competitive cost structure, and to continue to further close the gap between us and our competitors. You know, we have an exceptional leadership team in place that understands the importance of aligning the entire organization, as you said, Greg, the 35,000 men and women of BNSF, aligning them around that operational excellence. You saw that we made progress, as Greg said, in 2025. We continued to make progress in the first quarter of 2026, but we know that we have more work to be done to drive that operational excellence across all areas of our company.

Yeah. And talking to the different CEOs, if you give me just one second before I answer, I just want to make just one brief comment. Really to both Warren and Greg, I have been CEO of NetJets for the last 10 years, but I've been with NetJets. This is my 30th year there. So only at Berkshire could you feel like the new kid on the block after being here for 30 years. But you know, Warren has taught us a lot. Charlie's taught us a lot. Greg's taught me a lot. One of the things that they've said over and over is that, hey, bad news takes the elevator and good news takes the stairs. And I really understood that many, many years ago, and until I became CEO, I found myself on the elevator a few times. And what they never told me was what happens after you get on that elevator. And I just want to point out as the CEO for the last 10 years, there's been many times I've had to make calls on things. We run a big business, and I simply want to say that what happens after that is you have the most unconditional support, and I echo all the CEOs that are in this portfolio. So I just want to say thank you for that because it's not easy delivering sometimes good or bad news, but it's been phenomenal support. As it relates to the actual—the other 31 CEOs in our bucket, I have to sort of start with conversation with NetJets because people have been asking me a lot in the last five months, so you're still CEO of NetJets, but how are you going to take on this other role? And I think the journey starts with the team at NetJets. So, many of them are here, and they're incredible. I spent a lot of time over the last 10-plus years with them. I sat up in that stage in the arena in May of 2010, and it was a hard thing to hear, but it was the truth, and Warren talked about NetJets and stated that it was his toughest mistake that year, and but for the backing of Berkshire, that we would have been bankrupt. And I don't like repeating those words and probably shouldn't do it in front of an entire room, but it's an important pause because then you have two choices: what are you going to go do? And so the team that's sitting with me today and many people back home, I do think we have a wonderful company, as Warren talked about with Charlie in 2023, and I just want to say to them, thank you, because it's been a rough road to do that, and we've accomplished a lot, which gets me in to answer your question. And I, you know, I'll be honest with you. So, thank God I have NetJets because I was able to fly around and see a lot of these companies. Unfortunately, all 31 companies are not based out of Columbus, Ohio. So, I've been on our airplanes a lot. And if I'm honest, I was a little concerned about it. Many of the CEOs had reported directly to Warren. All of them reported to Berkshire, and then here comes this guy, you know, that they're now going to be working with. And I will tell you, one of the things that struck me is how wise the CEOs are. They have the energy, intelligence, integrity that Warren always talks about. But I say wise because my concerns were quickly allayed when I started talking to them in the sense that they've been listening. I know many in this room don't know the names of those 31 other CEOs, but they know you, and they've been listening. They absolutely understand the playbook that is the ownership manual. By the way, this is almost today the 30th anniversary Warren wrote the owner's manual, and in that was sort of our business bible on what we needed to do. And I was really pleased. Every one of our CEOs understands that, they've been living that, and that's going to make the interaction much easier for me. So I feel really good. I feel really good about the form of the CEOs that we have, and I know that they have ingrained in them the culture. Part of the culture certainly is the ownership thinking, but the stewardship that is talked about, we feel a massive and deep responsibility to carry on the stewardship and the legacy of Charlie and Warren and work really hard for Greg and his team. So I feel good about it.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay. Thanks, Greg. This question comes from Chris Fried in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, 'How has the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East impacted Berkshire's subsidiaries?'

Yeah, it's interesting, and Warren has said this in the past before. You know, the railroad is a really good reflection of what's happening in the industrial and the consumer economies because our loadings really cut across all the various commodities. You know, we touch agricultural products, we touch coal, the industrial commodities like cement and steel and aggregates. You know, certainly our intermodal business, which is such a big part of our business, reflects what's going on with the consumer. And so we're seeing the impact from the conflict in the Middle East in a couple of different ways. First of all, I would say that if you look across

Yeah, I mean certainly, you know, when you see the increases that have occurred and the instant spikes in some cases that occurred certainly on the consumer product side, on the retail side, it has affected some of the demand on that side. I would also tell you that we have also faced multiple times at NetJets with a hundred dollars a gallon or $100 a barrel pricing. We see those spikes. We see the demand. Haven't seen it on the net side. We went from really the last two years from about five to 540 a gallon. We're seeing spikes up to seven a gallon. I would tell you if I see that kind of sitting at 7 and a quart, 750 a gallon, then you'll see it start impacting even on the higher end side on the net side. So, we're feeling it. It's, you know, it's not the first time we've had to deal with this. You know, we're prepared to deal with those things and make adjustments where we need to, but it certainly is affecting, I would say, some of the retail businesses and some of the consumer product businesses.

Good afternoon, Mjab Singh from MountainHouse, California. Warren has spoken very highly of both you, Greg and Katie. So, I'm grateful to have you both leading our company. And I'd like to ask each of you a question. Greg, as you know, the Berkshire system relies on decentralization. Each manager runs their own subsidiary. As CEO, which operating units do you think need more oversight and how will you handle a manager who underperforms? And Katie, as Greg highlighted, BNSF's profitability lags its competitors. With eventual technology advancements and autonomous driving, trucking costs will continue to drop. How will BNSF maintain its competitive advantage from competitors and new technology?

Absolutely. So, thank you for the question and as I said, we absolutely know that it's critically important that we continue to drive an efficient operation, that we continue to have a competitive cost structure, and that we continue to close the gap with our competitor relative to our profitability. There's a couple of specific things that we're working on and it's really about operationalizing the improvement that we saw in 2025 into the first quarter of 2026 and making sure that we're really institutionalizing that. So the first thing that we really focused on in 2025 was we knew that we needed to improve our single car operational efficiency. And when I say single car unit operational efficiency, we run a couple of different networks. We run our intermodal network. We run our agricultural and our coal network, our bulk networks. And then the balance of it is what we call our carload network or our single car network. And that's where we have non-unit train. It takes a lot of operational focus. It takes a lot of work effort and it consumes a lot of resources. And so anything you do to improve that single car network is good for all of your customers. It frees up resources. It creates capacity. It allows you to handle the same amount of volume if not more with fewer assets. And that translates through then to the improvement that you're seeing in the profitability. An example of that is in the first quarter of this year, we handled more volume than we did in the first quarter of last year, but we did it with 260 fewer locomotives. That translates into a more consistent service product for our customers and it also translates into better financial results, which is what you saw in the first quarter of 2026. So we're spending a lot of time ensuring that we have operational excellence not in just all those other networks but in the network that frees up resources and drives improvement and operational excellence for all of our customers. The second area and you heard Greg talk about this earlier was around our technological transformation. We really believe that in addition to driving that operational discipline that you saw in 2025 and into 2026, that working with the new BNSF tech organization to drive that next step level of improvement. And so you saw units dwell in our terminals less time that translated through to the financial results that I talked about. You saw velocity improve as well. And so how do we leverage technology then to take the next step level improvement? So I'm excited about what we're doing there. We're literally attracting data scientists, operations research folks, and we're putting them alongside of our operators in our network operations center. We're looking at things like digital twins, which gives us the opportunity to model how we run the railroad before we actually run the railroad. We're looking at opportunities to do predictive ETAs for our customers, which allows our customers to have a better product. It allows us to turn the assets faster. And then last, what I would say is that we're just, it's good old-fashioned going to work on attacking the largest structural cost buckets. We had a record for the first quarter in our fuel efficiency. That's the kind of thing we want to do because it makes us competitive with trucks. It is good for the environment and it's good for our financials. So those are the things we're doing to close the gap relative to profitability. Now your question about competing with trucks. I would say a couple of things with that. First of all, we have the largest intermodal franchise of all of the railroads. We have a unique relationship with JB Hunt and we have been extremely successful in converting over the road freight. We've done more of that than anybody. So, we know how to compete with trucks. But your question about technology is a good one. And I would say that we in the past have invested in a system called positive train control, which is a safety overlay that allows us to operate the railroad efficiently. As you know, we operate in a closed circuit. And so we have the ability to your point ultimately to run the train with fewer people than we operate with today. And in fact if you go way back in time we used to operate the trains with five people on the train. Now we're down to two people on most of our trains. So the technology will continue just like most industries will continue to evolve and we're continuing to look at that as well. The last point I would say with that though is that we also have to be allowed to innovate and so we need regulation that supports the ability for railroads to be able to compete with trucks. As you said, we know that there are trucks out there running today in our state in Texas along I45. We just, there was just a pilot with autonomous trucks. What we have to be able to do is to be able to compete with that and to be able to innovate. And so we're going to need regulations that allow the railroads to be able to do that. So that's how I think about competing, ensuring that we're closing the gap as well as maintaining our competitive advantage with trucks.

Yeah. Well, I will tell you, you know, one of the, I came back on June 1st of 2015 and that Monday afternoon and many of the team that's up here today we got in a room and I asked a question about how many people really understand sort of the bookends of our business. NetJets is complicated. We're ad hoc. We're unscheduled. We fly to thousands of airports. Commercial airlines will fly to 50 to 100 airports. We fly to 150 countries around, so it's a very complicated business and I asked a question to the team, how many people do you think really understand the bookends of our business and I didn't like the answer I won't tell you what the answer was but it was too few and it sort of started there and what we did was we really said, you know, to build this culture the way we want it if I understand what you're doing you understand what I'm doing at deeper and wider levels we're going to do good things together so it sort of started on that Monday afternoon and when we started building that back. I will tell you it was also a reinforcement from probably from Greg. I remember my first board meeting prep and I was excited and we were starting to kind of move and I was talking about growth and we're going to get this right. We're going to grow and Greg pulled me aside in a very kind way and he said, 'Why don't you pay $1 back to Warren and work on getting your debt down?' That was a teaching lesson. I took that to heart. I heard it clearly and I actually already knew that. And so we just started really putting our blinders on and we said safety and service, safety and service. Warren bought NetJets after becoming a customer in 1995. Bought NetJets in 1998 and he did a video for us that we still use and he said I want safety and I want service and we've been really focused on making sure everybody stays in that alleyway. That in large part plus a lot of hard work is why we were able to pay our debt back. We're able to pay cash back to Berkshire Hathaway and move our way, as I said in the video, out of the other comm and be first in the service business and I'm proud of that.

Okay, this comes from Brian Simpkins in San Diego, California. The question is, has Berkshire Hathaway considered seeking any tariff relief or reimbursement programs for its wholly-owned operating businesses exposed to import costs? And how significant is that impact across the portfolio?

Not as far as the reimbursement, but I would say just as far as the impact of the tariffs and what we're seeing with our customers, you know, I would say that in early 2025, we saw several of our customers pulling forward shipments in advance of the tariffs. And you know we certainly saw our volumes ramp up at the beginning of 2025 because people were trying to get ahead of the implementation of the tariffs. So we did see an increase in volumes through early 2025. That really stabilized then in the back part of 2025 and then into 2026. I would say that our customers have really adapted to the tariffs and adjusted to the tariffs. With that said, it does cause some uncertainty and I think where we see that really showing up is, you know, it's very difficult for our customers from a planning perspective and I think it's keeping some capital on the sidelines as far as investment in manufacturing facilities and it's just really the uncertainty of the tariffs that really is what we're seeing reflected with our customers.

Thank you, Adam. Yeah, I mean I would echo both those points. One, I would probably use Berkshire Hathaway Automotive, Jeff Rocker who is an excellent CEO of that division, you know, his new and used sales are slightly down in Q1 of this year compared to last year and part of that is this is sort of that same effect from the tariff buying that occurred a year ago to today. I had to smile because we were collecting. Okay, it's just it's changed every day as we know and you manage through that and just understanding the tariff bouncing ball was, you know, a job in itself. But I had to smile because I was actually calling our CEOs just to get their take on it. And the 32 companies in the portfolio, consumer product services and retail, it's a stat that I love. They've been actually been around on average 88 years and only 0.5% of American businesses have been around more than 80 years. Our average in that sector from a founding standpoint is 88 years. And several of the, five of the companies specifically companies that were founded in the 1800s. And when I called those CEOs, they said we've been dealing with tariffs for a hundred years, you know, kind of thing. And so not being dismissive at all of tariffs. The point is I look at the whole tariff conversation as you're always going to have a curveball. If I think of the CEOs in the last, you know, seven, eight years, we've had to deal with a global pandemic, the highest inflation 40 years, and now this thing, the bouncing ball of tariffs. So, the businesses have done an excellent job of managing through that. I wouldn't put it in the fun department of the things we have to deal with, but we're learning it and I think we're in a pretty decent spot moving forward.

Good afternoon. My name is Amir Rahani from Vancouver, Canada. Thank you for hosting us and thanks to everyone at headquarters that makes this weekend possible. Berkshire's investments in the five Japanese trading houses was passive. Good businesses at good prices financed by cheap yen. Your Tokyo Marine deal is fundamentally different. A 10-year joint M&A and reinsurance partnership. That's a level of operational integration Berkshire has never done internationally. What does that look like in practice? And does it signal a broader shift toward active international partnerships under your leadership? And to put you on the spot, Greg, Canada versus USA and hockey. Who are you cheering for? Sorry.

I will say Greg and I had an Oilers stars bet last year and...

Yeah, Katie owns some Oilers jersey and unfortunately this year neither of us get to have that bet. They're both on the sidelines very quickly, but thank you for that question. Becky.

This question comes from a shareholder who didn't want to be identified, but it's a variation of a question that I got from several shareholders. Is there any future circumstance that you could envision Berkshire divesting businesses or being broken up? If so, what are those circumstances? The shareholder also writes, note, I don't want this to happen, but it's commonly discussed among followers of the company.

Greg, there's a second part of that question though that gets at is there a point where some of the parts or something is there a point where it doesn't make sense for Berkshire to be a conglomerate where you would break up the company?

Hi, Greg. Hi, Greg. Katie and Adam. My name is Lori Wong. I'm here from Chundu, China. On behalf of myself and my investment partner, Shui. Thank you very much for this opportunity and congratulations, Greg, on surviving your first year as CEO. I'm sure the seat feels a bit warmer than it used to be. As you lead Berkshire into this new chapter, what would you say is the most significant evolution in your personal framework for assessing cash flow certainty and margin of safety compared to Warren's? And specifically, are you more inclined towards technology companies that exhibits the same robust cash flows? Thank you for continuing the legacy of Mr. Warren Buffett and Mr. Charlie Munger.

This question comes from Joseph Matas and he said Warren had Charlie's partnership for most of his tenure as CEO which naturally reduce the risk of subpar investment decisions. Who will serve as the Charlie for Greg?