Warren Buffett is once again the second-richest person on the planet, and he has US president-elect Donald Trump to thank.
Buffett added US$6.2 billion to his fortune in the week through Friday leading gains for the world’s wealthiest as he leaped over Spain’s Amancio Ortega and Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos to reclaim the No. 2 spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Buffett supported Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton in the election and ferried voters to the polls in his Nebraska hometown.
Photo: AP
He picked Clinton over Trump because she had better “temperament and judgement,” he said.
The billionaire investor benefited as shares in Wells Fargo & Co soared 13 percent in the two days after Tuesday’s election on speculation that a Republican administration would bring less regulation and sideline some of the industry’s sharpest critics. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc holds a 10 percent stake in the San Francisco-based lender.
The world’s richest people lost US$6 billion in the week through Friday, according to the Bloomberg index.
Mexico’s wealthiest person, Carlos Slim, saw his fortune sink US$5.8 billion as the Mexican peso fell to a record 20.78 per US dollar. Ortega, founder of clothing retailer Zara, lost US$2.7 billion and fell to the No. 3 spot after Buffett.
A slump in technology stocks amid concern that Trump’s policies would harm international trade shaved almost US$5.2 billion from the fortunes of the 56 richest moguls in that industry in the two days following the election. Facebook Inc chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg lost US$785 million this week while Bezos was down by US$1.3 billion in the same period.
Buffett on Friday said that the US would move forward after a bruising presidential campaign and that he would be happy to advise Trump if asked.
“I would do that with any president,” Buffett told CNN. “If any president asked me for help in any way, that’s part of being a citizen.”
Buffett said he was “100 percent” confident in the US, believing the country would ultimately move beyond the vitriolic campaign.
He said he was not bothered that Trump’s business record includes “some major failures” — a reference to his multiple casino and hotel bankruptcies.
“Harry Truman went broke in a Haberdashery store near Kansas City or in Kansas City,” he said. “He wasn’t much of a businessman. He turned out to be a terrific president.”
However, Buffett expressed skepticism that Trump would push forward with some controversial campaign proposals.
Talk of imposing a 35 percent tariff on imports from Mexico or China is “a very bad idea, but I’m not going to say it will cause a recession,” Buffett said. “Any time you start playing with retaliatory type trade things, it’s very likely you’re going to have the other side play too.”
Buffett called Trump’s pledge of 4 percent annual growth a pipe dream, saying “there may be a given year where that happens, but the math is just too extraordinary.”
A better objective was to do a better job of distributing the 2 percent growth that is possible, Buffett said.
Additional reporting by AFP
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