Berkshire’s Warren Buffett net worth surpasses $100bln

Washington: US businessman Warren Buffett joined the small circle of executives worth more than $100 billion, which also includes Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault and Bill Gates, Forbes magazine reported.

The share price of his company Berkshire Hathaway reached a record level on Wednesday, pushing his fortune to $100.3 billion -- the first time that his net worth has crossed the $100 billion threshold.

Buffett, 90, known as the "Oracle of Omaha," is one of the most successful and respected executives of all time, but his fortune has never before reached such a peak, with investors in recent years betting on the values of the technology sector. While Buffett has been a fixture at the top of the world's wealth rankings for decades, his personal fortune hasn't topped $100 billion until now.

One reason is his sizeable charitable donations - he has given away more than $37 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock since 2006. Regarded as the world's most successful investor, Buffett has given away billions of his wealth to charity. Buffett is a generous donor, having given more than $41 billion, mainly to the Gates Foundation and his children´s foundations, Forbes said.

In 2010, Buffett and Gates launched the "Giving Pledge," which called on billionaires to commit to giving at least half of their wealth to charitable organizations.

Mackenzie Scott, ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has also signed up to the pledge and gave away more than $4 billion of her fortune in just four months last year. The fifth member of the exclusive cohort is LVMH's Bernard Arnault and his family. According to Forbes, the Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate owns more than 60 companies, including US insurance agency Geico and battery maker Duracell.

Mr Buffett's net worth comes almost entirely from owning about one-sixth of Berkshire Hathaway, a roughly $600 billion company. Its share price is up 15 percent this year, surpassing $400,000 a share. The investment firm had been struggling in recent years to find deals to spark its growth given its sheer size. The Omaha-based company is a major shareholder in Apple and other tech stocks that have seen their values surge during the pandemic.

Berkshire Hathaway was a failing textile company before Buffett took control of it 1965. It now owns more than 90 businesses.

According to Forbes´ real-time billionaire ranking, only four other executives have a higher net worth than Buffett: Amazon founder Bezos ($179.6 billion), Tesla CEO Musk ($165.1 billion), LVMH group director Arnault ($158.5 billion) and Microsoft cofounder Gates ($125.6 billion). Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is in sixth place, with an estimated fortune of $96.7 billion.