Inheritances often bring out the worst in everyone. Few things show the true moral character of each person better than a good inheritance, especially when it is expensive. That is why some say that, to keep families together, the best thing is to spend everything while alive. The mission is complicated, however, if you are Warren Buffett, who has been CEO of Berkshire Hathaway since 1970 and whose fortune amounts to over 120 billion euros, according to Forbes.
Aware that at 93 he will no longer have time to spend it all, the Oracle of Omaha has decided to cut his losses. In statements offered this week to the Wall Street Journal, Buffett has announced that, when he is gone, the remainder of his estate will go to a charity that will be run by his three children.They will be the ones who, unanimously, must decide the destination of so much money.
The revelation upsets what was thought to be a decision already made. Many believed that Buffett’s fortune would go to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to which he has already given almost 40 billion dollars. However, the couple’s divorce and Melinda’s departure from the foundation have cooled his activity. And Buffett has decided to take another direction: “I feel very, very good about the values of my three children, and I trust 100% in how they will carry out things.” He has reasons to trust them. Although always backed by their father’s fortune and surname, Buffett’s three children have had important professional careers and have moved away from the stereotype of the lazy and indolent rich heir.
The eldest is Susan Alice Buffett (Omaha, Nebraska, USA, 1953). Although she is a member of the board of directors of Berkshire, her passion has always been social causes. She chairs the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named after her mother and which has been offering scholarships to students in Nebraska for 50 years, as well as the Sherwood Foundation, which also offers grants in her hometown. Married to lawyer Allen Greenberg in 1983, they separated in 1995 after having two children.
Susan herself has recounted how her father once refused to give her $40,000 to expand a kitchen. “You should go to the bank and ask for that money,” the wealthy investor replied when she asked for her money. The anecdote exemplifies the extent to which Buffett has instilled in his children the idea that they should earn their own money.
Howard Graham Buffett, the middle of the three brothers (Omaha, 1954), took note of this. Married to the children’s writer Devon Goss and with a son, he has the most entrepreneurial profile of the three. After being appointed to the board of Berkshire in 1992, he was chosen in 2012 by his father to be responsible for running his business after his death, so the plan is for him to soon become non-executive chairman of the firm. Howard has specialised above all in the field of agriculture. In fact, he himself oversees a family farm that the family owns in Illinois. Between 1993 and 2004 he was a board member of Coca-Cola Enterprises, the largest bottler in the world. From there, he moved on to become a board member of the Coca-Cola Company in 2010.
The youngest of the brothers, musician Peter Andrew Buffett (Omaha, 1958), is very different. He has had the most troubled life: he was married to financial expert Mary Buffett for 12 years before divorcing in 1993. Peter legally adopted Mary’s twin daughters from a previous relationship and later married philanthropist Jennifer Buffett in 1996.
Peter’s discography spans more than 30 years, with 17 albums. The youngest Buffett decided to sell all the Berkshire shares his father had bequeathed to him in his early twenties to bet everything on his true passion: music. Far removed from commercial styles, he began to experiment from his recording studio in his apartment in San Francisco. Things weren’t going too well for him.
In the early 1980s, however, a neighbour connected him with an emerging television channel, MTV, which was then in need of musicians to compose its advertising melodies. Those first compositions allowed him to become known. The big boost came in 1990, when he helped compose the score for the scene in which the character played by Kevin Costner dances around a bonfire in the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves. Since then, recognition and collaborations with artists such as rapper Akon have marked his career, in which he has always opted for musical styles such as new age.
“We haven’t talked about what we’re going to do because it seems a little premature,” Susan said of the inheritance. All three already have their own charities: to Susan’s already mentioned ones we can add the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which focuses on agricultural issues, and the NoVo Foundation, which Peter collaborates with and which works with indigenous communities. Susan herself admits that they will probably continue with their philanthropic work. To this they will have to add one more task: not to tarnish their family name by starting a fratricidal legal battle to get their father’s money. After all, none of them needs it.
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