Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel Speaks with CNBC’s Becky Quick on “Squawk Box” Today
WHEN: Today, Friday, May 1, 2026
WHERE: CNBC’s “Squawk Box”
Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcript of a CNBC interview with Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” (M-F, 6AM-9AM ET) today, Friday, May 1. Following are links to video on CNBC.com: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/05/01/berkshire-ceo-greg-abel-warren-buffets-commitment-and-deep-understanding-to-company-remains.html and https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/05/01/berkshire-ceo-greg-abel-on-risk-management-iran-war-impact-and-company-stock-portfolio.html.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
BECKY QUICK: It is a new day here in Omaha, Nebraska, as Greg Abel takes the stage for his first annual meeting as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. It all begins later today when this floor that you see behind us will actually open to shareholders for shopping. Then tomorrow we’ll be getting Berkshire’s first quarter earnings report. This is Abel’s first ahead of a one-hour business update that he’ll be giving from the stage. Then we’ll get into the Q&A coming from the shareholders. There will be two sessions of Q&A tomorrow. In the first, Greg Abel will be joined by Vice Chairman of insurance, Ajit Jain. For the second series of those questions, Adam Johnson, who’s the newly appointed president of consumer products, service and retailing, he’s got about 32 companies that he is now managing, will be joining him on stage along with the, he’s also the CEO of NetJets, will also be joined by Katie Farmer, who is the CEO of BNSF. There’s a lot to discuss this time around. Shareholders wondering everything from the latest on the $300 billion stock portfolio and who’s going to be managing that and how to whether Abel sees any opportunities to deploy some of the company’s almost $400 billion cash pile at this point. A lot to get into. I got the chance to catch up with Abel yesterday here at the convention center, and I spoke to him about the firm’s legacy of risk management, especially relevant now in the midst of the conflict in the Middle East. Also, got the chance to talk about price inflation.
GREG ABEL: One, fortunately, having run the non-insurance operations for eight years and know those leaders well, we always start discussing what the challenges are, what, what’s the risk today, but more importantly, what’s the risk five years, 10 years from now? What, what’s worrying them? How is their customer changing? And that’s a constant dialog. So, but, but there’s broader risks that you start to see surface. And then when I was with the insurance team, that first meeting was all a discussion around risk. Yes, we have to get pricing right to the risk. But what are the risks, and not the risks that year? What are we seeing the risk five and 10 years from now? And if you go to insurance, for example, and it’s a risk in a lot of our business, businesses, for example, inflation. So we’re very aware of that. We’re watching it across our businesses. We want to understand what what it does to our business is, but business as a whole in Berkshire and and then it goes from there.
QUICK: Inflation has been stubborn even before the war with Iran. Now you have more inflation. How or when does that become a problem that you worry about?
ABEL: Well, I think, I think we worry, listen at these levels and the 2% goal, and we’re at three and potentially creeping up a bit, we prefer to clearly see that at the two as would the American consumer in every business. But the reality is, there’s going to be some. It’s all manageable at this level, but we all know what’s happened to countries when it gets at the extreme levels. And post covid, we hit some pretty high levels when we were at that eight to 9% level. That’s pretty alarming, and it adjusted down. So if it gets the levels, and then it continues to compound, it gets very scary at those type of levels.
QUICK: We also talked about the Berkshire stock portfolio, which Greg Abel wrote about in his first annual letter, about $200 billion of the $300 billion in those holdings, he says are stable, steady investments, companies like Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola and Moody’s, as well as the Japanese trading houses. Now, Abel says he not only knows those businesses well, but he knows the leaders of those businesses well and trusts them. Of course, we learned this year that two of those holdings, Apple and Coca-Cola, will have new leaders.
ABEL: We will be meeting with the leaders, in fact, in this coming week—
QUICK: Okay.
ABEL: With both of them, the incoming. And, unfortunately, the change when that happens and but what we what we do believe in, and I believe that’s what we had, we know the quality of those leaders. We know the quality of the businesses. The boards are exceptional. They’re going to have thought this through very clearly and have the right leader. And time always tells. But the reality is, we’re excited by the leaders coming in and very supportive of what the prior two leaders have done. It’s remarkable what they’ve done with those two businesses.
QUICK: Yeah, it’s kind of surprising because we’ve heard of so many CEOs who have stepped down that have been really young. James Quincey is only 60.
ABEL: I know.
QUICK: He’s younger than you are.
ABEL: Yeah, I know he’s younger. I know, I reminded him of that when he told me he was going to step down. I said you’ve got more years in you. Come on.
QUICK: Right.
ABEL: But the reality is, we all have our own timelines.
QUICK: Yeah. Tim Cook’s less than two years older than you are, but I know you addressed this in the letter, too. But how long do you see yourself doing this? What’s, what’s your runway?
ABEL: Yeah, my runway is really long. I love doing this, and like Warren, we’re passionate. And as I said right from the get go, I want our shareholders to know there’s absolute commitment and passion. And I have a great family, and I prioritize my family, and I prioritize Berkshire and I know how to find the balance and and with those two things, I’m really happy. I have time for friends and the odd activity, sure, but it’s when you know how to, at least I believe that when you can find that right balance, it’s perfect. And so, I don’t, I wouldn’t, when I said 20 years in the letter, that would not surprise me, but that’s up to our board, obviously, and we and our shareholders, we have to be doing a great job. But I love Berkshire, and I see myself in this role for a long time.
QUICK: We walked the floor here yesterday with Greg and saw the CEOs of many of the Berkshire companies that are presenting here, including Adam Johnson, the CEO of NetJets. We got to talk to him about demand for private jets and what’s happening with jet fuel and Andrew, we’ll get into that a little later.
