Buffett Steps Down

Warren Buffett stepped down Friday as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, closing out a run in the post that began in 1970.

His son, Howard Buffett, took over immediately. Berkshire said so in a statement reported by NPR. Howard has sat on the company's board since 1993, according to NPR.

"Father Time always wins," Warren Buffett wrote in a letter to shareholders, according to NBC News. "He has, however, been generous with me." He is 96. He'll keep a board seat as chairman emeritus, a title that took effect immediately, Berkshire said.

Buffett had held onto the chairman title even after handing off the chief executive job eight months earlier, NPR reported. Greg Abel, his longtime lieutenant, took over as CEO then. "Warren's impact on Berkshire and its owners is without parallel in the history of American business," Abel said in a statement carried by NPR. Howard, he added, will guard the culture Buffett built.

Buffett was already using Berkshire as his main investment vehicle by the 1960s. He joined the company in 1965 and became chairman in 1970, NBC News reported. Berkshire's stock climbed more than 5,500,000% over that stretch, NBC News said, against a roughly 39,000% gain for the S&P 500 across the same years.

Railroads. Insurance. Ice cream and underwear. Berkshire owns BNSF, Geico, Fruit of the Loom, Benjamin Moore, Duracell and Dairy Queen, according to NBC News.

Trading kept him busy almost to the end. He told CNBC in July that Berkshire had bought into Alphabet, a stake NBC News valued at more than $27 billion, and called skipping the stock earlier a mistake. Apple remains Berkshire's biggest holding, worth close to $80 billion the day before the announcement, NBC News reported.

Buffett ranks as the world's 10th richest person, with a net worth topping $145 billion, per NBC News. He has given away almost $50 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and helped start the Giving Pledge, which asks billionaires to commit most of their fortunes to charity.

"More than 99% of my wealth will go to philanthropy during my lifetime or at death," Buffett wrote, NBC News reported.