In an interview on FOX Business Network’s (FBN) Countdown to the Closing Bell (weekdays 3p-4p/ET), anchor Liz Claman sat down with Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, Vice Chair Charlie Munger, and daughter of Warren Buffett Susan Buffett live from the 2018 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.
WARREN BUFFETT:
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On Wells Fargo:
“I have great respect for [Wells Fargo CEO] Tim Sloan. I think that Wells Fargo has got a great future, and I think that they made a terrible mistake, somebody made a terrible mistake when they learned what was going on and didn’t do something about it. Having the wrong incentives is something that can happen.”
On whether he has $100 billion or $107 billion in cash:
“Well it depends on the day. On balance we buy, we bought -I just looked - we have 4 stocks that we bought today. We have nothing we sold. So it’s just the question of how fast things come in in terms of things we’re buying.”
On not buying Amazon stocks:
“I made a huge mistake not getting into it. But I make a lot of mistakes.”
On trade relations between the U.S. and China:
“I think that China and the U.S. have to get along all the time. We are the two superpowers. And will be as far as the eye and then some can see. We will have disagreements, but together, and with a lot of other countries, too, the world is going to move forward and we both realize that we try to win this or that or they try to win this or that, but in the end, cooperation generally. And you have disagreements with big powers, but cooperation generally is going to move our societies forward.”
On the Iran nuclear deal:
“I favor continuing the deal. But the question is the security, is peace over time. And the security of Israel. The minimizing of tensions, the minimizing of anybody getting nuclear capabilities. You have to weigh a whole lot of things and I feel that the arrangement made sense when they made it. It’s not perfect, but we do not live in a perfect world and we do live in a nuclear world.”
On the new Berkshire Hathaway vice chair Gregory Abel:
“He’s a very, very nice guy who gets things done and understands business exceptionally well.”
On Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos:
“Jeff Bezos is a business genius, Liz… He took an idea and did something that was almost unbelievable with it, and not only developed an incredible business in retailing but at the same time building out the cloud business.
On Mark Zuckerberg:
“I think he’s quite grounded and he has a grounded wife too, and you know, young child. And I think he’s very capable of making very good decisions, and his wife too. The two of them, I’m impressed with them, and they’ll accomplish a whole lot with the money he’s made in Facebook, and a very high percentage of his salary will go back to society, he’s declared that already.”
On his relationship with Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s father Bob Mnuchin:
“Bob Mnuchin, on a Thursday, in 1976…he bought the first big blocks of Geico for Berkshire Hathaway. I called him in the morning, I was going into a director’s meeting at the Washington Post…I called him and I said ‘Mnuchin buy every share you can.’ So I went in the meeting, I wasn’t thinking about the meeting at all, I was thinking about how many shares is Mnuchin getting. I called him when I got out and he bought a lot of stock that day and you can’t believe how much money we’ve made on it.”
CHARLIE MUNGER:
On whether Bitcoin should still be considered despite the rise in price:
“It’s more expensive rat poison.”
On people who are passionate about Bitcoin:
“Well, I think these idiot booms do harm to a country. They frequently come to bad ends and they cause economic consequences that are bad for the whole damn country and so I like it when my country steps hard on any idiot booms instead of fanning the flames. If there’s ever anything that needed stepping down on hard it’s Bitcoin.”
On the first question he asks when looking into buying assets with Warren Buffett:
“Well, usually we think so much alike we practically don’t have to talk. So, it’s not a hard problem. The problem is we don’t get offered as much as we would like to buy and that problem is getting worse and worse but we’re coping pretty well.”
SUSAN BUFFETT:
On whether Warren Buffett was a traditional Dad or a feminist Dad:
“He was not at all a traditional, no. I still remember him sitting at the dinner table talking about how at that time women had few options for work- nurses, teacher, secretaries, and he was talking about how half the work force really wasn’t being taken advantage of as they could be and having the opportunities that they could have to shine. He never treated me any differently than the boys as far as you should do this or you should do that. It was a completely equal opportunity household.”
