The scene at Berkshire Hathaway’s 2026 shareholders meeting likely will be similar to past decades: shareholders from near and far gathered in Omaha’s biggest arena, prepared to hear the leaders of Omaha’s biggest company discuss the future.
The difference on this May 2: Warren Buffett, who assembled the trillion-dollar conglomerate from scratch, will sit on the arena floor, not at a table on the stage. By retiring as chief executive on Dec. 31 but remaining as chairman, he relegated himself to sitting with other Berkshire directors and shifted the spotlight to new CEO Greg Abel, a Canada native and hockey dad from Des Moines, Iowa.
Change is in the wind for Berkshire, holder of nearly $400 billion in cash and $300 billion in securities, alongside dozens of businesses, from railroads to razor blades, power plants to plastic containers, and insurance policies to ice cream sundaes…