About one in five Americans works past the traditional retirement age, according to Pew Research. And billionaire Warren Buffett has proven that it can be quite lucrative to keep working in older age — the 94-year-old Berkshire Hathaway CEO earned close to 95% of his personal wealth after age 65, per Barron’s.
Buffett turned 65 on Aug. 30, 1995. At that time, his Berkshire stock was worth about $12 billion (about $25.3 billion today with inflation). In the three decades since, Buffett’s net worth has skyrocketed as Berkshire’s stock price has grown nearly 30-fold.
Related: ‘It Was Unfair’: Warren Buffett Reveals the Real Reason He Stepped Down as CEO
Buffett is now worth $141 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with 99% of his wealth, or $140 billion of his fortune, tied to his interest in Berkshire Hathaway. The Index places him as the eleventh-wealthiest person in the world, at the time of writing.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. Photo by Daniel Zuchnik/WireImage
Buffett’s wealth has grown nearly 12-fold from 1995 to 2025, despite his extensive charitable giving. In June, Buffett made his biggest annual donation yet to five organizations, dividing up $6 billion between the Gates Foundation and four family charities: the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the Sherwood Foundation, and the NoVo Foundation.
Buffett began making annual contributions to these organizations starting in June 2006 and has donated a total of over $60 billion to these foundations so far.
Related: Warren Buffett Is Making a Big Change to Next Year’s Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
Barron’s estimates that if Buffett hadn’t given away a portion of his wealth, his fortune would have more than doubled at this point, reaching $300 billion.
Buffett has held the position of CEO of Berkshire Hathaway for 55 years, beginning his tenure in 1970. At Berkshire’s annual meeting earlier this year, he announced that he would be stepping down, and Greg Abel, 62, Berkshire’s vice chairman of non-insurance operations, will assume the role of CEO on Jan. 1, 2026.
Berkshire Hathaway’s market value was a little over $1 trillion at the time of writing.
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About one in five Americans works past the traditional retirement age, according to Pew Research. And billionaire Warren Buffett has proven that it can be quite lucrative to keep working in older age — the 94-year-old Berkshire Hathaway CEO earned close to 95% of his personal wealth after age 65, per Barron’s.
Buffett turned 65 on Aug. 30, 1995. At that time, his Berkshire stock was worth about $12 billion (about $25.3 billion today with inflation). In the three decades since, Buffett’s net worth has skyrocketed as Berkshire’s stock price has grown nearly 30-fold.
Related: ‘It Was Unfair’: Warren Buffett Reveals the Real Reason He Stepped Down as CEO
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