Warren Buffett Steps Down as Berkshire Hathaway Chairman; Son Howard to Succeed Him
Why It MattersThe leadership transition underscores how deeply Berkshire's ownership, since its $711 million NetJets purchase, has shaped debt capital availability and credibility across the private aviation industry.
Warren Buffett has become chairman emeritus of Berkshire Hathaway, effective immediately, stepping back from the chairmanship of the Omaha-based conglomerate that owns NetJets, the world's largest private jet operator. His son Howard Buffett, a board member since 1993, succeeds him as chairman, while Warren Buffett had already stepped down as CEO in December, with Greg Abel, previously vice chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, taking the CEO role. Berkshire Hathaway opened trading on the day of the announcement valued at $1.09 trillion, with $365 billion in cash at the end of Q2 2026, and NetJets Chairman and CEO Adam Johnson has been given expanded responsibility covering 30 of the company's businesses, which include management and charter operator Executive Jet Management and FlightSafety.
Berkshire Hathaway acquired NetJets in 1998 for $711 million. In its first 11 years under Berkshire ownership, NetJets incurred an aggregate pre-tax loss of $157 million, with debt rising from $102 million to $1.9 billion, and Buffett wrote in 2010 that without Berkshire's debt guarantee, NetJets would have been out of business. The company has since been turned around substantially under Adam Johnson's leadership; in 2023, the late Charlie Munger said NetJets could be worth as much as any airline, with American Airlines, then the least valuable major U.S. airline, valued at around $9 billion.
In 2024, NetJets and its pilots agreed to a new contract providing cockpit crews an additional $1.6 billion in compensation over five years. NetJets currently holds 2,000 options for new private jets from Bombardier, Embraer, and Textron Aviation, and at the end of 2025 had over 9,000 employees. Buffett's 1998 entry into private aviation is widely credited with encouraging investment in the sector, and Flexjet Chairman Kenn Ricci has noted that the NetJets acquisition transformed the availability of debt capital for the broader private aviation industry.
