The acerbic Munger so often curbed Buffett’s enthusiasm that Buffett jokingly referred to him as “the abominable no-man.”

At Berkshire’s 2002 meeting, Buffett offered a three-minute answer to the question of whether the company might buy a cable company. Munger said he doubted one would be available for an acceptable price.

“At what price would you be comfortable?” Buffett asked.

“Probably at a lower price than you,” Munger parried.

Cardboard Cutout
From Los Angeles, Munger spoke frequently by phone with Buffett in Omaha. Even when they couldn’t connect, Buffett claimed he knew what Munger would think. When Munger missed a special meeting of Berkshire shareholders in 2010, Buffett brought a cardboard cutout of his partner on stage and mimicked Munger saying, “I couldn’t agree more.”

Munger was an outspoken critic of corporate misbehavior, faulting as “demented” and “immoral” the compensation packages given to some chief executives. He called Bitcoin “noxious poison,” defined cryptocurrency generally as “partly fraud and partly delusion” and warned that much of banking had become “gambling in drag.”

“I love his ability to just cut to the heart of things and not care how he says it,” said Cole Smead, CEO of Smead Capital Management, a longtime Berkshire investor. “In today’s society, that’s a really unique thing.”

Though Munger aligned with the US Republican Party, and Buffett sided with Democrats, the two often found common ground on issues like the desirability of universal health care and the need for government oversight of the financial system.

But while Buffett would tour the world urging billionaires to embrace charity, Munger said a private company like Costco Wholesale Corp. — he served on its board for more than two decades — did more good for society than big-name philanthropic foundations.

With his own donations, Munger promoted abortion rights and education. He served as chairman of Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. Multimillion-dollar bequests to the University of Michigan and the University of California at Santa Barbara for new housing facilities gave him an opportunity to indulge a passion for architecture — though his vision for a 4,500-person dormitory on the Santa Barbara campus drew howls of protest in 2021 because the vast majority of bedrooms are to have no windows.