“With only three board members, it does really put a lot of attention on Warren Buffett’s role in the middle of that,” Witkowski said soon after the divorce. “In an ideal setup, they would have had more trustees.”
Mark Suzman, the foundation’s chief executive officer, told employees last month that he’s in talks to strengthen “the long-term sustainability and stability of the foundation.”
Suzman “is an outstanding recent selection who has my full support,” Buffett said in the statement.
Suzman said last month that no decisions have been made about what future steps need to be taken, but added that Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates have “reaffirmed their commitment to the foundation and continue to work together on behalf of our mission.”
Buffett has been pulling back on travel commitments in recent years, including stepping down from the Kraft Heinz Co. board in 2018. The CEO still runs his sprawling conglomerate that’s valued at more than $634 billion, but recently shared that Greg Abel, a vice chairman who oversees all of Berkshire’s non-insurance operations, is currently the top candidate to succeed him if he steps back.
In 2006, Buffett said that he would distribute all of his shares of the company to charity. He said in Wednesday’s statement that his most-recent $4.1 billion distribution brought him halfway to that target.
“In June of 2006, I owned 474,998 ‘A’ shares. Now, I own 238,624 shares, worth about $100 billion,” he said, with all of them destined for philanthropy.
“Please understand that these remarks are no swan song,” the billionaire investor said in the statement. “I still relish being on the field and carrying the ball. But I’m clearly playing in a game that, for me, has moved past the fourth quarter into overtime.”
—With assistance from Sophie Alexander.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.