Every year, a group of billionaire CEOs, investors, university leaders and politicians gather at Allen & Co.’s Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, for what many have called “summer camp for billionaires.” private An event closed to the press since its inception in 1983, the deals made inside this summer camp often have far-reaching global implications. Jeff Bezos is famous for Solved Details of his life Washington Post For example, shares in Sun Valley were purchased in 2013, and Disney and ABC executives did something similar in the weeks leading up to their meeting. merger In 1995.
The guest list for this year’s exclusive event will be as impressive as ever, with big names including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Disney CEO Bob Iger, as well as Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and founder Jeff Bezos all planning to attend, according to Guest List Seen by diverseHowever, Sun Valley will also have one Oracle.
Buffett stays home
Warren Buffett, the 94-year-old chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, also known as the “Oracle of Omaha,” will not attend what has long been a favorite event of his. Instead, he will send his protégé and eventual successor, Greg Abel, Berkshire’s vice chairman of non-insurance businesses.
It’s a big shift for Buffett, who has been attending Sun Valley University regularly since 2008. 1980sGuests can enjoy fishing and horseback riding while staying at one of Ernest Hemingway’s favorite places, Sun Valley Lodge, which now costs more than $1,200 a night. While this isn’t Apple’s first year at Sun Valley, it will be his first year representing Berkshire.
Buffett’s absence could be seen as another sign that he is handing over more responsibilities, and more public attention, to Apple as he ages.
Berkshire’s succession plans have been in the spotlight since the death of Charlie Munger, the former right-hand man in Omaha, in November. But Buffett made clear that he has been leaning on Apple for some time at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting this year, which some have called “Woodstock for capitalists.” Buffett seems confident that there won’t be much change at Berkshire once he’s gone.
“I don’t really do much and I don’t work at the same level of efficiency that I would have done 30 or 40 years ago… When you have someone like Greg (Abel) and Ajit (Jain), why would you stick with me? It’s worked out very well,” he told Berkshire shareholders, also referring to Ajit Jain, who runs the conglomerate’s insurance business.
Ever since Apple was named as a potential successor to Buffett in 2021, there have been questions about whether the Berkshire veteran, who began his career as an accountant before becoming an energy executive and eventually taking over Berkshire’s non-insurance businesses, has the investing skills of his predecessor. But Buffett reiterated his confidence in his protégé at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting this year.
“If I were on the board and made this decision, I would probably leave the capital allocation to Greg, because he knows the business, and if you understand the business you understand common stock,” he said.
Another missing giant
Buffett isn’t the only big name planning to skip Sun Valley this year — Tesla CEO Elon Musk won’t be attending either. In 2022, Musk gave a standout speech at the event, but his performance left attendees wanting more after he declined to answer questions from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about his then-in-the-making Twitter acquisition on a later panel. Bloomberg Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources.
It’s not entirely surprising that Musk would avoid Sun Valley, given that the billionaire entrepreneur has made far fewer public appearances and given far fewer interviews in recent years, choosing instead to speak to the public via X (formerly Twitter) on a daily basis.
But Musk’s refusal to attend or answer pressing questions stands in stark contrast to his more media-friendly past. In 2015, after the explosion of a Falcon 9 rocket that was supposed to deliver cargo to the International Space Station — one of SpaceX’s biggest setbacks — Musk faced the media, giving an exclusive interview with cnbc He promised to find out what happened and fix it.