The Berkshire boss said in a CNBC interview Thursday he would use his entire $15 million after-tax salary (his salary is $25 million for 2026) to purchase shares of the company he took over in January each year for as long as he is in charge.
These purchases, which he said would take place yearly after the company releases its annual results, would amount to “hundreds of millions of dollars” of share repurchases over the years. Abel already bought about $15.3 million worth of Berkshire Hathaway shares this week, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Absolute alignment with our shareholders, our partners, our owners is critical,” Abel told CNBC. “I already have some shares, but the goal was to continue to demonstrate alignment with them.”
Despite Buffett’s famous preference for thriftiness, Abel said he made the decision to use his salary to buy Berkshire shares on his own.
“It’s a logical thing to do when you’re leading the company,” he said.
Aleksandar Tomic, the director of the master of science in applied analytics and master of science in applied economics programs at Boston College, told Fortune Abel is trying to show the market his allegiance.
“Abel is really trying to signal strongly that the company will survive even after Buffett’s departure,” he said.
The move may have worked for now. Following the announcement, Berkshire’s shares rose more than 1% Thursday.
Separately, Berkshire announced Wednesday it would begin buying back its own shares, changing course after Buffett’s previous aversion to such buybacks, which help investors by tacking shares out of circulation and raising the stock price as well as increasing the stakes of large shareholders. Buffett has previously criticized other executives for repurchasing their company’s shares.
“I can’t help but feel that too often today’s repurchases are dictated by management’s desire to ‘show confidence’ or be in fashion rather than by a desire to enhance per-share value,” he wrote in his shareholder letter from 1999.
Still, Abel told CNBC the company has a longstanding policy of buying its own shares when it believes their “intrinsic value” is above the price being offered for them on the market. Abel also said he made the decision after consulting Buffett.
Buffett, Abel, and Berkshire Hathaway did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
‘He’ll be fine’
While Abel may be using his entire post-tax salary to buy the company’s stock, Tomic said he won’t be going hungry anytime soon.
Before becoming CEO, Abel received almost an entirely all-cash compensation plan, in line with Buffett’s no-stock compensation philosophy. Abel received a salary of $20 million in 2023 and $21 million in 2024. Because he was already earning a significant salary previously, he may have accumulated some savings to live on, Tomic said. Abel could also sell his newly acquired Berkshire stock if he’s in need of cash, he added.
“I believe that he probably has enough reserves for his living expenses, that his living expenses are probably not as high as his salary, and that there might be other parts of compensation that could put cash in his pocket like bonuses,” said Tomic.
Abel’s pre-tax salary of $25 million, according to a filing with the SEC, is also unusually large among high-profile chief executives, who in recent years have derived most of their compensation from other sources such as stock grants, Tomic added. For comparison, the top-paid Fortune 500 CEO as of January, Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon, received a base salary of $2 million, even while his total compensation stood at a whopping $47 million thanks, in part, to large stock grants tied to the firm’s performance.
While Abel may be putting most of his salary toward buying his own company’s shares, showing off one’s money was never part of Buffett’s philosophy at Berkshire, he said.
The now-retired Buffett famously kept his salary fixed at $100,000 for decades as he served as CEO of Berkshire. He also lives in the same five-bedroom home in Omaha, Neb. he bought for $31,500 in 1958.
“These are not flashy guys,” Tomic said. “I think he’ll be fine.”
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