Warren Buffett, the CEO of publicly traded investment company Berkshire Hathaway, announced at the company’s annual shareholder meeting that he will step down by the end of 2025, and his chosen successor will take over as CEO, pending approval from Berkshire’s board of directors.

According to CNBC, Buffett reiterated that Greg Abel, the company’s vice chairman of non-insurance operations, who was previously named by Buffett as his successor, will take over. The Berkshire founder announced:

“The time has arrived when Greg should become the Chief executive officer of the company at year-end, and I want to spring that on the directors effectively and give that as my recommendation.”

Buffett added that he would stay at the company in an advisory role “but the final word would be what Greg decided,” the CEO said. Buffett’s decision to step down as CEO comes at a time when Berkshire Hathaway is sitting on cash reserves of roughly $348 billion.

Buffett speaking at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder conference. Source: CNBC

The legendary stock investor has repeatedly called the growing US national debt unsustainable and issued warnings on the increasingly unstable macroeconomic environment that has taken a toll on the stock market.

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Berkshire Hathaway outperforms S&P but is outclassed by Bitcoin

Despite being renowned for consistently returning roughly double the average performance of the S&P 500 to investors throughout his career, Buffet has failed to outperform Bitcoin (BTC) and gold.

Although Berkshire Hathaway’s class A common stock carries a price tag of over $809,000, and a market cap of over $1 trillion at the time of this writing, shares of the company have massively underperformed against Bitcoin in percentage terms since 2015.

Bitcoin has returned gains of over 781% to investors since 2020, while Berkshire Hathaway only returned approximately 150% over the same period.

Bitcoin’s price performance appears in magenta and has outperformed Berkshire Hathaway’s stock in percentage gains. Source: TradingView

Buffett has long been critical of BTC, arguing that the decentralized, supply-capped, digital currency has no value and likened it to a scam on several occasions.

The Berkshire founder and his business partner Charlie Munger have repeatedly said that Bitcoin does not even qualify as an investment and should be avoided by traders.

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