Berkshire Investors Should Pay Attention to What Warren Buffett Just Said About Greg Abel

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Warren Buffett stepped down as Berkshire Hathaway’s (NYSE:BRK.B) CEO a little over 6 months ago, though he’s still the chairman. Greg Abel has been entrusted with steering the company, and he has largely followed in Buffett’s footsteps by continuing to pile up cash and not participate in a stock market rally while valuations are frothy.

Buffett has a lot to say about Abel’s performance so far, even though BRK stock remains flat over the past six months.

During the May 2026 annual meeting, Buffett sat in the front row and took the microphone to reflect on the board’s decision a year before naming Abel as his successor. He gave Abel an absolute perfect score and said, “This is the best decision we’ve ever made—100% successful. He’s done everything I did—and more. He is the right person.”

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Buffett’s effusive comments on Greg Abel

Buffett said that nearly all of his net worth is in Berkshire stock during an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick. Abel is effectively managing Buffett’s personal wealth. He said, “I’d rather have Greg handling my money than any of the top investment advisors or any of the top CEOs in the United States.”

Earlier this month, Abel hit the ground running by deploying nearly $17 billion in under 48 hours. Berkshire bought homebuilder Taylor Morrison and took a massive $10 billion stake in Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) AI infrastructure). Buffett went on to praise Abel’s execution to CNBC.

He noted that Abel executed the Taylor Morrison acquisition “faster than I could have done it, smoother than I could have done it.” He added that Abel “has launched” due to his aggressive start.

Buffett has called Abel “the decider.” He “can’t imagine how much more he can get accomplished in a week than I can [in] a month.” He kept praising Abel for not letting the position change his character, because he is not a “distorted individual.”

Why Greg Abel refuses to buy into the hype

Buffett’s cash-hoarding caused BRK stock to slide down in the first half of 2025 and trade sideways in the second half of that year. The trend has continued under Abel, as he did not make any radical changes. Berkshire’s philosophy does not allow it to chase the AI rally by buying stocks at high prices. Not paying for up has cost the company dearly in the past three years, even though most people don’t bring it up.

The big-name expensive stocks three years ago were only expensive due to the market being forward-looking. Wall Street’s bet that companies like Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) will be able to deliver stellar growth rates for years has paid off.

It’s a good idea to look at the Dot Com era to understand what is happening right now.

Buffett refused to buy into the internet boom early in the Dot Com era, and 1999 was a hard year for Berkshire Hathaway. Tech stocks were up by double digits while BRK-B fell by almost 20%. Buffett gave his own capital allocation a “D” grade, joking that his performance was like a quarterback with a report card of four Fs and a D. He gave a warning during a speech at the Allen & Co. Sun Valley conference to an audience of tech billionaires and venture capitalists.

The bubble finally started popping the next year, and by then Buffett was armed with enough cash to opportunistically buy some fallen angels. Something similar may be going on with today’s rally.

Should you buy or sell BRK stock now?

Most investors are overweight on the AI rally, and it doesn’t hurt to snap up some BRK. Unfortunately, even Berkshire is vulnerable to an AI crash. It still holds plenty of businesses that are directly linked to the broader market’s performance, so you should not expect it to come out unscathed. At the same time, you shouldn’t expect continued underperformance from Buffett’s businesses.

It’s still a buy.

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