Berkshire Hathaway announced on Sept. 18 that Warren Buffett, 96, will step down as chairman, and his 71-year-old eldest son Howard Buffett will take the role. In a letter to shareholders, Buffett said CEO Greg Abel will run the company, while Howard will be responsible for preserving Berkshire's culture and values.
That setup leaves Howard Buffett outside the day-to-day management of the conglomerate and away from investment selection. His résumé has little in common with Wall Street. He never finished college, operated a bulldozer to dig basements, served as a county sheriff, and in recent years has spent repeated stretches near the front lines in Ukraine.
He once thought his father was a security guard
Howard Graham Buffett was born in 1954 and was named after his grandfather. His middle name, Graham, came from Benjamin Graham, Buffett's teacher at Columbia University and a central figure in value investing.
By Howard's childhood, Warren Buffett had already become extremely wealthy, but the family lived simply. In a 2011 interview with CBS's 60 Minutes, Howard said the children only knew their father was a "security analyst," without understanding what that meant.
His sister, when asked at school what their father did, answered that he was a "security guard." Howard said, "We thought that for a long time," because the word "security" carried both meanings for them.
Warren Buffett's way of giving pocket money was unusual too. He kept a slot machine on the third floor of the family home and said at the 2007 shareholder meeting: "I gave my kids all the allowance they wanted, as long as it was in dimes. At the end of the day, I took it all back." The point, he said, was that the children would feed the coins into the machine and learn something about losing money and managing it.
Three colleges, no degree, then an excavation business
Howard attended three colleges and graduated from none of them. According to Alice Schroeder's Buffett biography The Snowball, the first was Augustana College in Illinois. He struggled to adjust, did not get along with his roommate, and eventually dropped out.
In the book, Howard said, "I was very close to my mother, and everything in my life revolved around home. I couldn't make college work."
Warren Buffett said on 60 Minutes that he was not worried. "He was just finding what he wanted to do," Buffett said. He added that none of his three children finished college and that "if you added up all their credits, maybe you'd have one degree."
The Snowball says a trust left by their grandfather distributed more than 600 Berkshire shares to the grandchildren in the mid-1970s. Warren Buffett gave no advice on what to do with the stock. Howard's sister sold most of hers to buy a Porsche and an apartment. Howard sold part of his stake and started Buffett Excavating, using a bulldozer to dig residential basements.
Berkshire Class A shares have never split. If Howard had kept all 600 shares, they would be worth about $458 million today.
Howard married Marcia Sue Duncan in August 1977 at age 22. Her father warned that marrying a man who dug basements and drove around in a small truck with two large shaggy dogs would not end well. Howard later sold more of the Berkshire stock his father had given him and built a tree house for the couple to live in, but the marriage did not last.
After the divorce, he followed his father's advice and went to work at Berkshire-owned See's Candies, starting with floor cleaning and maintenance. He later met Devon Morse while playing doubles tennis in California. She was going through marital problems at the time and had four daughters.
Trying to impress her, Howard climbed a pole to adjust a clock by the court, fell, and broke his leg. Devon drove him home and later brought food to check on him. They married in Nebraska in 1982 before a judge, with Warren Buffett serving as one of the witnesses.
Howard later decided to farm. Warren Buffett bought farmland for him but required him to pay rent. On 60 Minutes, Buffett said, "I don't think he deserves a farm just because his last name is Buffett."
The only registered Republican in the Buffett family
Howard's politics also diverged from the rest of the family. He is the only registered Republican among the Buffetts, and his grandfather, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives, was also a Republican. Warren Buffett, by contrast, has repeatedly supported Democratic candidates in public.
At the same time, Howard's political donations have gone to both parties, including a contribution to Barack Obama in 2008.
Sheriff, wildlife photographer, and a cheetah bite in South Africa
Howard spent five years as an assistant deputy sheriff in Macon County, Illinois. Fortune reported that he became county sheriff in September 2017 and served until November 2018. He is currently still a deputy sheriff there. In the U.S., a sheriff is the top law enforcement official at the county level.
He is also a wildlife photographer, wrote a book about cheetahs, and founded a cheetah conservation organization in South Africa. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2009 that he established a wildlife preserve outside Johannesburg and was bitten there by a cheetah, leaving a faint scar on his right arm.
Ukraine trips and aid that may top $1 billion
After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Howard entered Ukraine with a camera six weeks into the war. When the Ukrainian National Museum in Chicago introduced his photography exhibition in 2025, it said he had visited Ukraine more than 20 times and spent more than 63 days on the front line. The museum described him as "the largest private donor to Ukraine."
Fortune reported in April 2025 that his foundation had already provided about $800 million in aid to Ukraine, including $175 million for demining. The foundation expected total aid to exceed $1 billion by the end of 2025.
In December 2025, Howard joined a Ukrainian police special unit near the front line outside Kupiansk in Kharkiv region and personally took part in evacuating residents. According to Ukraine's national police, armored vehicles provided by his foundation had helped evacuate more than 200 civilians.
Why Warren Buffett wanted him in the chair
Warren Buffett explained on 60 Minutes back in 2011 why he wanted Howard to become chairman in the future. He said he worried that someone might one day treat Berkshire as a personal playground. The odds were "very, very low," he said, but keeping Howard on the board would add "one more layer of protection."
Howard, for his part, said he would never pick investments: "As long as I can keep farming, I'll be fine."