• In today’s CEO Daily: Shawn Tully on Warren Buffett’s successor, Greg Abel
• The big story: Trump moves on China and TikTok.
• The markets: Happy.
• Analyst notes from JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.
• Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. It was the most widely watched and speculated upon succession race of all time: Who would succeed Warren Buffett as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO? Buffett’s long-time partner, the then 97-year old Charlie Munger, ended the mystery at the 2021 annual meeting by letting slip that the choice, made well before but long kept secret, was Greg Abel. Though the Oracle of Omaha has long been lauded for his golden gut for picking stocks and companies to acquire, this is his biggest bet yet. In a new feature for Fortune I profiled the little-known Abel, and teased out a few key lessons about succession along the way.
Give it time: For two decades, Buffett and Munger got to watch Abel in action as he built one of Berkshire biggest, strongest pillars: Its $26 billion energy franchise. They got to see Abel build what was a mid-sized Iowa utility into a powerhouse that delivers electricity to over 5 million customers. Over the years Abel’s multiple skills became visible—he proved himself not just as a day-to-day operator, someone who doesn’t take foolish risks, but also a leader who is willing to pounce when others are too fearful to move.
Culture wins: Buffett was careful to anoint someone who is a cultural fit. He’ll never sing “My Way” on the Today show like his mentor, but Buffett’s successor shares his outgoing, ultra-trustworthy personality that should continue to be a magnet.
Demand results: While Buffett is famously hands-off, his successor isn’t. Insiders say if you’re lagging, you’ll get a call from Greg and a few months to get back on track. He’s shown he won’t flinch in changing management personnel, as he recently proved by shifting the C-suite at the $50 billion Pilot Travel Centers truck stop empire.
Buffett’s still sharp as ever, and has announced no plans to retire. But the man he calls “tougher than I am” brings the right blend of continuity plus a newfound determination to shape up the laggards to what will be the arguably the biggest, hardest job in corporate America in the decades to come: Filling Buffett’s shoes. You can read all about Abel and what we know about his plans for Berkshire Hathaway here.
Meanwhile in Davos, Fortune CEO Anastasia Nyrkovskaya spoke on a WEF panel about AI and the future of media with The Atlantic’s Nicholas Thompson and Prorata founder Bill Gross. The panel’s opinions varied from those aggressively seeking to protect their content from LLMs — like Universal Music Group head Frank Briegmann — to more of a wait-and-see approach. All agreed the need to figure out how to get compensated in an AI world is an existential threat. One jarring stat from Gross: While Google historically crawled publisher content six times a day to deliver relevant search results, major LLMs now crawl it 250-plis times a day. In the end, the conversation veered toward rebuilding trust. If publishers want to be compensated as trusted sources of information in a AI world, they need readers need to start seeing them as reputable again too.
More news below.
Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
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China tariffs: Trump said he will impose tariffs on imports from China of 10%. The move is in response for China’s role in exporting fentanyl that ends up in the U.S., he said.
TikTok and Musk: Trump said he would be open to allowing Elon Musk to acquire TikTok at a press conference. “I would be, if he wanted to buy it,” Trump told reporters. Such a deal would rescue the app from its impending legal ban in the U.S.
A $500 billion commitment to AI: The president announced funding for data centers and other infrastructure that will benefit a new consortium named Stargate comprising OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and the UAE's MGX.
Green energy slashed: The president ordered a halt to $300 billion in spending on renewable energy projects.
The revenging begins: Trump has already started to seek retribution against his critics. In addition to removing the security clearances of 50 intelligence officials he removed the security detail for John Bolton, his former national security adviser. He also insulted a bishop (“nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart”) who asked him to show mercy.
Silk Road boss pardoned: Ross Ulbricht had been in prison for life since 2015 for creating a dark web drug marketplace that led to the deaths of six people. “The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!,” the president said.
Bird flu is now so advanced in the US that it is leading to egg shortages, rationing, and price rises.
From Fortune
Trump’s memecoin raises concerns
The launch of President Donald Trump’s memecoin last week is raising the alarm among government watchdogs after reaching a peak value of $70 billion. Presidents in the past have avoided such conflicts-of-interest, though there’s little legal precedent for dealing with the issue. Crypto insiders are also worried that $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens will discredit the industry when their price inevitably falls and people lose money.
Stock market winners and losers on Trump’s day 2
Tech stocks including Nvidia, Alphabet, and Amazon saw gains during Trump’s second day in office along with the S&P, Dow Jones, and Russel 2000. Apple fell 3.2% on concerns about the company’s China market, however, and Tesla’s share price slipped 0.6%. Fortune
A generation of founders
Experts tell Fortune that a growing share of Gen Zers see themselves as founders and entrepreneurs rather than typical corporate employees. Fortune’s Orianna Rosa Royle investigates this phenomenon and identifies how companies can keep Gen Z applications coming in.
The markets
• The S&P 500 rose nearly 1% yesterday to close back above 6,000 at 6,049.24 … U.S. futures were priced even further north at $6,112 prior to the opening … Nvidia rose more than 2% to $140.83, reapproaching its all-time high … the European markets were broadly up this morning.
From the analysts
• JP Morgan on Apple: Outlook uncertain. “Share loss in China to likely continue … Limited traction yet for the AI features … Stronger USD to increase headwinds,” according to Samik Chatterjee and team in a note seen by Fortune.
• Goldman Sachs on US GDP: “Our economists anticipate 2.6% growth in US GDP for 2025, which surpasses the consensus of 2.1% and our estimate of around 2.0% for medium-term potential growth. We are still more confident than others that real disposable personal income will grow solidly in 2025 and in part because of a sturdy forecast for business investment.”
• Goldman Sachs on Trump: “President Trump’s Inauguration Day policy announcements on tariffs were more benign than expected. While we did not expect major policy pronouncements so soon following inauguration, Trump’s comments on China were notably less hawkish than during the presidential campaign or even his more recent comments since the election. And while we viewed a ‘universal tariff’ as a clear risk his comments suggest that, for now, it is a lower priority than we would have expected.”
• Going viral among finance types: Two lengthy essays on what really happened when Trump launched $TRUMP, his crypto memecoin, by Molly White here and “Michel de Cryptadamus” here.
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