Warren Buffett walks the floor and meets with Berkshire Hathaway shareholders before its annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on May 3, 2024.
David A. Grogan
Warren Buffett is concerned about the rise of impersonators who want to use his name claiming he recommends investment products or political candidates on social media. So many of them Berkshire Hathaway took the rare step of adding a statement on the matter to the website’s front page.
The statement reads:
“Due to the increased use of social media, there have been many fraudulent claims regarding Mr. Buffett’s endorsement of investment products as well as his endorsement and support of political candidates. Mr. Buffett does not and will not endorse investment products or endorse and support political candidates.”
Berkshire’s chairman and CEO explained to CNBC’s Becky Quick, saying: “I’m worried that people are copying me and that’s why we put it on the Berkshire Web site. to vote.”
Buffett’s statement comes during a tense political season with a deadlocked presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump that has divided big names on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley like Elon Musk, Bill Ackman and Mark Cuban. The New York Times reported Tuesday that Bill Gates personally supported Harris with a $50 million donation to a non-profit organization supporting his candidacy.
There is also growing concern about so-called deep fakes, the use of artificial intelligence to impersonate influential people for commercial gain or other uses with images or videos that appear closer and closer to reality due to advances in technology. For those familiar with the investment legend’s point of view, any endorsement by Buffett for investment products or cryptocurrencies will be met with skepticism as he is known to avoid bitcoin and generally recommends ordinary investors to buy cheap index funds.
But Buffett wants to make sure everyone knows he won’t do anything like that. His actions were triggered in part by false political endorsements MetaInstagram is where he’s at.
“I don’t even know how to get on Instagram,” he told CNBC, adding that he wants to make sure people know “whatever they see with my picture or my voice, it’s not me.”
– With reporting by Becky Quick and Lacy O’Toole.
