Warren Buffett Net Worth 2026

Warren Buffett’s net worth is $148.9 billion as of 14 October 2026, according to Forbes, which ranks him the 10th richest person in the world. Almost all of the fortune is his stake in Berkshire Hathaway, the company he took control of in 1965 and ran until Greg Abel took over as chief executive on 1 January 2026.

Buffett, 96, remains chairman of Berkshire and continues to give away his shares each year.

What is Warren Buffett’s net worth in 2026?

Forbes puts Warren Buffett’s net worth at $148.9 billion on 14 October 2026. That ranks him 10th in the world on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list, just behind Microsoft’s former chief executive Steve Ballmer.

Also readJeff Bezos Net Worth 2026

His figure moves with Berkshire Hathaway’s share price, because Berkshire stock makes up nearly all of his wealth. On the same day, Forbes recorded a one-day gain of about $1.1 billion. On Forbes’ World’s Billionaires list, measured on 1 March 2026, he was ninth with $149 billion, so his net worth has been broadly flat this year even as he kept giving shares away.

Buffett is far behind the tech founders at the top of the list. See our ranking of the richest people in the world for the full top 10.

How much of Berkshire Hathaway does Warren Buffett own?

Buffett owned 198,117 Class A shares and 1,144 Class B shares after his June 2025 gift, according to a Berkshire Hathaway press release. He said then that the A shares were worth about $145 billion and made up well over 99% of his net worth.

Since then he has kept converting A shares into B shares to give away. In November 2025 he converted 1,800 A shares into 2.7 million B shares for four family foundations, and in July 2026 he gave about 12 million B shares, worth about $6 billion, to the same four foundations, the Australian Associated Press reported.

Berkshire is a large conglomerate with nearly 400,000 employees, according to its 2025 annual letter. Its businesses and holdings include:

• Insurance, including GEICO
• BNSF Railway
• Berkshire Hathaway Energy
• Large stock holdings, including Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola and Moody’s

In his first shareholder letter as chief executive, dated 28 February 2026, Greg Abel reported 2025 operating earnings of $44.5 billion and cash and US Treasury holdings of more than $370 billion.

Who replaced Warren Buffett as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway?

Greg Abel replaced Warren Buffett as president and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway on 1 January 2026. Buffett stayed on as chairman.

Berkshire’s board voted unanimously on 4 May 2025 to appoint Abel, effective 1 January 2026, the company said. Abel was born in Edmonton, Canada, and trained as an accountant. He was president of MidAmerican Energy when Berkshire bought a controlling stake in 1999, became its chief executive in 2008 and was made a Berkshire vice chairman in 2018, CNBC reported.

In a November 2025 letter, Buffett said he would no longer write Berkshire’s annual report or talk “endlessly” at the annual meeting. He said he would keep a significant amount of his A shares until shareholders were comfortable with Abel, and would write a yearly Thanksgiving message instead. In his February 2026 letter, Abel wrote that Berkshire was fortunate to have Buffett as chairman, “in the office five days a week”.

How did Warren Buffett make his money?

Buffett made his money by investing, first through his own partnerships and then through Berkshire Hathaway, a textile company he took control of in 1965. According to Berkshire’s 2025 annual letter, its per-share market value grew by 19.7% a year from 1965 to 2025, against 10.5% for the S&P 500 with dividends included.

He started young. He bought his first shares at 11: three shares of Cities Service Preferred at $38 each, which he sold at $40. He studied at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Columbia University, where Benjamin Graham was one of his teachers and later his mentor.

Berkshire then grew into a group that owns whole businesses, such as GEICO and BNSF, and holds large stakes in listed firms. Buffett still lives in Omaha, in the house he bought in 1958, which he calls his “first and only home”.

Warren Buffett net worth by year

How much has Warren Buffett given away?

Buffett has given away more than $72 billion, according to Forbes, mostly through the Gates Foundation and his children’s foundations. His will directs more than 99% of his estate to philanthropy, according to Berkshire press releases.

His giving follows a schedule he set on 26 June 2006, when he committed to annual gifts to five foundations. In 2010 he launched the Giving Pledge with Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, asking wealthy people to commit to giving away most of their fortunes.

Recent gifts include:

• June 2025: 12,358,321 B shares to five foundations. The Gates Foundation Trust received 9,433,839 shares.
• November 2025: 2.7 million B shares to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation (1.5 million) and the Sherwood, Howard G. Buffett and NoVo foundations (400,000 each).
• July 2026: about 12 million B shares, worth about $6 billion, to the four family foundations.

The July 2026 gift left out the Gates Foundation for the first time since 2006, the Australian Associated Press reported. The Chronicle of Philanthropy said Buffett had delayed the gift pending a review of the foundation’s past ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Buffett has given the Gates Foundation more than $47 billion since 2006, according to AAP.

What will happen to Warren Buffett’s fortune?

Almost all of Warren Buffett’s fortune is set to go to charity through foundations run by his three children. In July 2026 he said his remaining shares “will be donated to the four foundations one way or the other by December 31, 2034”.

In his November 2025 letter, Buffett said he needed to “step up the pace” of lifetime gifts to his children’s three foundations. His children were then aged 72, 70 and 67, and three alternate trustees are in place in case of death or disability. Buffett wrote that his children “do not need to perform miracles nor fear failures or disappointments”.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported that the shares once intended for the Gates Foundation, worth more than $80 billion, are now directed to a charitable trust run by his children, which must give the money away within 10 years of his death. Because Buffett gives shares away each year, his net worth now grows more slowly than Berkshire’s share price.

How does Warren Buffett compare with other billionaires?

Buffett is the only person in Forbes’ top 10 whose fortune does not come from technology. He is worth less than half of Jeff Bezos but more than Amancio Ortega and the Walton heirs.

The list figure for Buffett differs slightly from the $148.9 billion on his Forbes profile because the two were read at different times on 14 October 2026. For profiles of the two richest men, read our guides to Elon Musk’s net worth and Jeff Bezos’s net worth.