He’s famous for drinking five cans of Coca-Cola daily and eating ice cream at every opportunity. He filed his first taxes at age 13 and earned his first $50 thousand by age 16. He was turned down by Harvard Business School, has lived in the same house for almost 65 years, and is revered as one of the most successful investors of all time. He’s none other than the “Oracle of Omaha” himself, Warren Buffett. But what’s Warren Buffett’s net worth? Today, we’ll dive into the topic and shed light on this infamous investor’s bank balance through the years. Let’s dive in.

Warren Buffett’s Background

Born in Omaha in 1930, Buffett’s devotion to business and investing started early. He bought his first stock at the age of 11, began his first of several entrepreneurial ventures soon after, and became a millionaire by age 30, a goal he’d set for himself as a teenager. 

From delivering newspapers and investing his salary as a 15-year-old to purchasing a Texaco garage in his early 20s, Buffett’s life as a young adult revolved almost exclusively around one money-making venture or another. After an array of successful investments, he eventually formed a series of investment partnerships that went from strength to strength under his management.

Buffett created the first of these on May 1, 1956, after convincing seven friends and family members to contribute a total of $105,000. He named it Buffett Associates Ltd. Just six years later, it was worth over $7 million.

Business continued to boom for Buffett until 1962 when he started buying shares in the company for which he’s best known today: Berkshire Hathaway. Then a struggling textile manufacturing firm, it wasn’t long before Buffett became its largest shareholder and later took control of the company.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Over the decades, Berkshire Hathaway has grown exponentially into the roughly $612 billion behemoth it is today. The level of growth there is nothing short of extraordinary. Consider this: according to Business Insider, a $1,000 investment in Berkshire Hathaway back in 1964 would now be worth well over $10.5 million. However, investors buying shares some years later still led to immense wealth. For instance, one Buffett billionaire, Stewart Horejsi, initially bought shares in 1980 and continued to add to his holdings. Today, he is worth more than $2 billion.

Warren Buffett’s Historic Net Worth

Over the last 70+ years, Buffett’s success has turned him into one of the wealthiest individuals and best-known investors on the planet. He’s also become a renowned philanthropist committed to giving away 99% of his wealth before he dies.

But Buffett wasn’t born a billionaire.

His story’s one of steady and patient wealth accumulation over time. Since childhood, he scrimped, hustled, saved, and invested until he finally hit the million-dollar mark at age 30. It wasn’t until 26 years later that he became a billionaire for the first time. From there, though, Buffett’s net worth began to skyrocket.

In 1989, his personal fortune sat at $3.6 billion. Ten years later, it was $36 billion, and by 2018, it was roughly $84.5 billion.

He’s never flaunted his wealth, though. In 1979, when Buffett’s net worth sat somewhere around $140 million, he lived off a modest $50,000 annual salary. Fast forward over 40 years, and his current base salary from Berkshire Hathaway is $100,000 – a figure that hasn’t changed for 25+ years. 

Likewise, as we mentioned in the introduction, Buffett continues to live in the house in Omaha that he purchased for $31,500 in 1958, and he eats a diet that consists not of steak and foie gras but Coca-Cola and ice cream.

The question remains: what’s Warren Buffett’s net worth in 2022?

Warren Buffett’s Current Net Worth

Forbes lists the now 92-year-old Warren Buffett as the 5^th richest person alive today, with a net worth of almost $97 billion, mostly from his ownership of Berkshire Hathaway stock. That’s an unimaginable amount of money for most people. However, it’s actually a considerable drop from earlier this year, when the business magnate’s fortune sat at a staggering $117 billion.

So, how did he do it? What tricks of the trade has Buffett used to reach such heady heights of wealth?

We could write an entire article on this topic. Yet a crucial part of Buffett’s success revolves around his commitment to finding and investing in unjustifiably cheap securities compared to their intrinsic worth – a philosophy known as “value investing,” and holding them for decades. Buffett’s 2021 annual letter summarizes the top stocks owned by Berkshire Hathaway, his investment vehicle. These stocks include Coca-Cola (KO), American Express (AXP), Apple (AAPL), Bank of America (BAC), The Bank of New York Mellon (BK), Moody’s (MCO), U.S Bancorp (USB), etc.

By reinvesting profits, and quoting Buffett, being “fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful,” and leveraging the power of compounding, his personal fortune has increased exponentially over a long and illustrious career. Buffett earned over 99% of his net worth in the last 35 years.

Now You Know Warren Buffett’s Net Worth

Buffett’s ascent to stardom in the world of investing is nothing short of extraordinary. Not only does he show no signs of slowing down in his 90s, but his name is now synonymous with the industry. As a result, people everywhere turn to him for inspiration and advice on how to achieve a semblance of his immense success.

With any luck, the insights in this article have shed light on Warren Buffett’s net worth.

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