Legendary billionaire investor Warren Buffett announced plans to step down from Berkshire Hathaway by the end of the year, prompting lengthy applause from the crowd at the company’s annual shareholder meeting.
Buffett, 94, recommended Berkshire Hathaway Chairperson Greg Abel as his replacement and said he had no plans to sell his stock in the company.
The announcement came after Buffett ripped President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs, warning the United States shouldn’t use “trade as a weapon” and anger the rest of the world.
“It’s a big mistake in my view when you have 7.5 billion people who don’t like you very well, and you have 300 million who are crowing about how they have done,” Buffett told shareholders during the annual meeting.
While it’s best for trade to be balanced between countries, Buffett added he does not believe tariffs are the right way to go about it. He also said the world will be safer if more countries are prosperous.
“We should be looking to trade with the rest of the world,” he said. “We should do what we do best, and they should do what they do best.”
Buffett, however, insisted the stock market’s recent turmoil that generated headlines after Trump’s tariff announcement last month “is really nothing.”
He dismissed the recent drop in the market because he’s seen three periods in the last 60 years of managing Berkshire when his company’s stock was halved.
He cited when the Dow Jones industrial average went from 240 on the day he was born in 1930 down to 41 during the Great Depression as a truly significant drop in the markets. Currently the Dow Jones Industrial Average sits at $41,317.43.
With Post wires.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
