OMAHA, Nebraska (AP) — Billionaire Warren Buffett says artificial intelligence could change the world in every way, but the new technology won’t steal opportunities for investors and help America prosper for a long time. He said he was confident he would continue.
Buffett and partner Charlie Munger Answering questions all day Saturday At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting inside a packed Omaha Arena.
“When something new comes out, it doesn’t take away an opportunity. Buffett had the chance to try out ChatGPT when his friend Bill Gates showed it to him a few months ago.
Buffett reiterated his long-term optimism about America’s prospects, despite today’s bitter political divisions.
“The problem now is that partisanship is leaning more toward tribalism, where you don’t even hear the other side,” he said.
Both Buffett and Munger said the US would benefit from having an open trade relationship with China.
“Anything that increases tension between the two countries is ridiculous, ridiculous,” Munger said. And whenever one country does something stupid, he said, the other country should respond with incredible kindness.
The opportunity to hear the two men answer all kinds of questions about business and life draws people from all over the world to Omaha, Nebraska. Some shareholders feel particularly urgent for Buffett and Munger to attend now, as they are both in their 90s.
“Charlie Munger is 99. I just wanted to meet him in person. It’s on my bucket list,” said Sheraton Wu, a 40-year-old from Vancouver. I have to attend.”
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Chloe Lin, who attended the conference for the first time and traveled from Singapore to learn from two legendary investors.
One of the few concessions Buffett makes to his age is not touring the exhibit halls before meetings. In the past few years, while a team of security guards worked to control crowds, he was attacked by shareholders who tried to take pictures with him. Munger has been a wheelchair user for several years, but both are still mentally sharp.
However, agreeing with concerns about their age, Berkshire showed a clip of a series of questions about inheritance from past meetings dating back to the first meeting they filmed in 1994. CEO, but I have no plans to retire. Abel already oversees all of Berkshire’s non-insurance businesses.
Buffett has assured shareholders that he has complete confidence in Abel to lead Berkshire in the future, and that Abel is good in his own right, so there is no alternative to the job. But he said much of what Abel has to do is preserve Berkshire’s culture and continue to make similar decisions.
“Greg understands capital allocation as much as I do. He will make these decisions with the same framework that I use,” Buffett said.
Abel then assured the audience that, knowing how Buffett and Munger have handled things for nearly 60 years, “I doubt that framework will change.”
Although not everyone in the meeting is a fan. Outside the arena, a pilot for Berkshire’s NetJets protested the lack of new contracts, while Prolife his group held up placards declaring “Buffett’s billions kill millions” and called for abortions. opposed his many charitable donations to rights groups.
Berkshire Hathaway announced Saturday morning that it earned $35.5 billion ($24,377 per Class A share) in the first quarter. That’s more than six times his $5.58 billion last year, or $3784 per share.
But Buffett has long warned that those earnings numbers could be misleading for Berkshire. This is because the value of an investment fluctuates greatly. In the quarter, Berkshire sold just $1.7 billion of her stock and posted a paper investment gain of $27.4 billion. Part of this year’s investment gains was Berkshire’s $2.4 billion increase related to his January acquisition of a majority stake in the pilot his travel center trucks company Stop. was included.
Buffett said Berkshire’s operating income, which excludes investments, is a better representation of the company’s performance. According to this measure, Berkshire’s operating profit increased by nearly 13% to $8.065 billion, from $7.16 billion a year ago.
Three analysts surveyed by FactSet expected Berkshire to report an operating profit of $5,370.91 per Class A share.
Buffett will release a formal outlook, telling shareholders on Saturday that he expects Berkshire’s operating profit to increase this year, even though the economy is slowing and many businesses will see lower sales in 2023. I’ve come to the point. The insurance market looks good this year.
The first quarter of this year was relatively quiet compared to a year ago, when Buffett announced earlier last year that he had invested $51 billion to buy up stocks in the likes of Occidental Petroleum, Chevron and HP. . Buffett’s buying slowed through the rest of last year, barring some additional Occidental purchases.
At the end of the first quarter of this year, Berkshire had $130.6 billion in cash, up from about $128.59 billion at the end of last year. However, Berkshire spent $4.4 billion to buy back its shares during the quarter.
Berkshire’s insurance division, which includes Geico and a number of large reinsurers, posted operating income of $911 million, up from $167 million last year, driven by Geico’s rebounding performance. Geico has benefited from charging higher insurance premiums and reducing advertising costs and claims.
But profits for Berkshire’s BNSF Railroad and its large utilities division have declined. BNSF made $1.25 billion from $1.37 billion as the number of shipments he processed fell 10% after the loss of a large customer and a slowdown in imports at West Coast ports. rice field. The utility division added $416 million to his $775 million last year.
In addition to these core businesses, Berkshire owns a wide variety of businesses, including numerous retail and manufacturing companies such as See’s Candy and Precision Castparts.
Berkshire is again facing pressure from activist investors, prompting the company to do more to categorize climate-change risks in company-wide reports. Shareholders were expected to reject that bill and all other shareholder proposals on Saturday afternoon, with Buffett and the board opposing and Buffett controlling more than 30% of the vote.
But despite its reluctance to detail climate risks, many of Berkshire’s subsidiaries, including railroads and utilities, are working to reduce their carbon footprint. The company’s Clayton Homes unit is showcasing new home designs this year that meet the Department of Energy’s stringent energy efficiency standards and come pre-loaded with solar power to be added later.
