Greg Abel just spent his entire salary buying Berkshire stock. Here’s why that’s a big deal

The man is replacing arguably the greatest investor who ever lived — someone whose annual shareholder letters are read like scripture, whose annual meeting in Omaha draws tens of thousands of pilgrims, and whose stock hasn’t just outperformed the market for decades, it defined what long-term investing looks like.

So naturally, everyone’s been watching Abel like a hawk. What’s he going to do with the $373 billion cash pile sitting on Berkshire’s books? Is he going to make a splashy acquisition? Buy more Apple? Just… leave it in T-bills and shrug?
For months, the answer seemed to be: none of the above. Just wait.

And then, this week, Abel moved.

The end of the 22-month buyback drought

The buyback is back.

For the first time in 22 months, Berkshire Hathaway resumed buying back its own shares. The last reported buybacks were completed in May 2024 — under Buffett. Since then, nothing. The cash pile kept growing. Investors kept wondering. The stock went essentially sideways.

Now Abel has pulled the trigger. Berkshire filed with the SEC disclosing that repurchases had commenced. Notably, they didn’t have to do this — Berkshire doesn’t normally announce mid-quarter that it’s buying back stock. They usually just disclose it quietly in the quarterly filings.

The fact that they flagged it proactively is itself a signal. Abel is saying: I want you to know I think this stock is cheap.
And in Berkshire’s world, that matters enormously. The company only buys back shares when management believes the stock is trading below intrinsic value, “conservatively determined.”

No commitments to a fixed amount or timeline — just a standing rule that when it’s cheap, they buy. When it’s not, they don’t. Simple. Elegant. Very Buffett.

Skin in the game: The $15.3 million personal bet

Then he did something even more interesting. Abel disclosed that he personally bought $15.3 million worth of Berkshire stock — using most of his own after-tax salary for the year. And he didn’t stop there. He told CNBC he plans to do this every single year going forward.

“I’m committed to doing this every year going forward,” he said. “We’ll file our 10-K, I’ll write the letter. And after the 48-hour cooling-off period, I’ll purchase $15.3 million next year.” Think about what that means. The CEO of a $1.1 trillion company is putting nearly his entire annual paycheck into his own company’s stock.

Not options. Not RSUs. Cold, hard, after-tax cash. That’s not just confidence — that’s skin in the game at a level most CEOs wouldn’t dare. It’s also deeply symbolic. Berkshire’s culture has always been about alignment. Buffett took a famously modest salary and kept most of his net worth in Berkshire stock. Abel is doing the same thing — signalling that his incentives are identical to those of every shareholder watching him.

But here’s the nuance most people are missing

That $373 billion cash pile? It’s not a blank cheque.

A significant portion of it is held by Berkshire’s insurance subsidiaries — companies like GEICO — as a cushion against future claims. Regulators require that this money stays relatively liquid and safe. You can’t just take insurance float and go buy a railroad with it.

So while the number sounds astronomical, Abel’s actual “deployable” capital is considerably smaller. That doesn’t make the buyback meaningless — it makes it more meaningful. He’s choosing to use real, discretionary capital to buy back stock, which tells you exactly what he thinks about the current valuation.

At around 1.5x price-to-book, Berkshire is trading near the lower end of where Buffett historically got comfortable buying back. Meanwhile, the underlying businesses — BNSF railroad, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, the insurance empire — have been quietly growing. BNSF’s results are up ~9% since 2024. BHE is up ~7%. The stock price hasn’t moved. Which means, mathematically, the margin of safety has been silently widening.

So what’s the verdict on Greg Abel?

Promising. But the bar is absurdly high. Abel has managed Berkshire’s energy assets well for years. He understands capital allocation. His personal investment sends exactly the right cultural signal. And restarting buybacks — rather than panic-deploying cash into overpriced assets just to look busy — shows discipline.

But Buffett wasn’t just a good capital allocator. He was a once-in-a-generation figure whose presence alone gave Berkshire a kind of premium that no balance sheet can fully capture. Hedge funds didn’t sell during Buffett’s dry spells because they trusted him. Will they extend the same patience to Abel if Berkshire goes sideways for another two or three years?

That’s the real test. Not the buyback. Not the personal stock purchase. But whether Abel can find that one big, brilliant, synergistic acquisition — the next BNSF, the next GEICO — that makes the world say: okay, this guy gets it.
The opening move looks good. Now let’s see the rest of the game.

Sonia Boolchandani is a seasoned financial writer She has written for prominent firms like Vested Finance, and Finology, where she has crafted content that simplifies complex financial concepts for diverse audiences.

Disclosure: The writer and her his dependents do not hold the stocks discussed in this article.

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