{"id":55458,"date":"2026-05-03T19:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T19:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/55458\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T19:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T19:57:12","slug":"bizarre-moment-at-berkshires-annual-meeting-spotlights-cyber-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/55458\/","title":{"rendered":"Bizarre moment at Berkshire’s annual meeting spotlights cyber risk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A version of this article first appeared on TKer.co<\/a><\/p>\n

Berkshire Hathaway\u2019s annual shareholder meeting was destined to be interesting as the first without<\/a> its now-retired CEO, Warren Buffett, MC\u2019ing the event.<\/p>\n

But Buffett, who remains chairman of Berkshire\u2019s board, made a few cameos. One of them was pretty eerie.<\/p>\n

Kicking off the Q&A on Saturday morning, the spotlight went to a video where “Warren from Omaha” asked the first question:<\/p>\n

Hi. My name is Warren from Omaha. I\u2019ve recently undergone, let\u2019s call it, a significant change in role. And I have, well, let\u2019s just say, a not insignificant portion of my net worth tied up in Berkshire stock. Now, Greg, I\u2019ve been watching this company for a while, a long time, a very long time. And I\u2019ve been telling people that I have no intentions of selling a single share, not one. So my question is a simple one. I\u2019m 95 years old. I\u2019ve got nothing but time and Cherry Coke. And I want to know, just so I have something to tell my fellow shareholders: Why should they hold their Berkshire shares for the long term?<\/p>\n

The fun moment quickly turned serious when CEO Greg Abel<\/a> informed the audience that it wasn\u2019t Warren Buffett.<\/p>\n

“As you’ve all picked up, that was a deepfake,” Abel said. “But here’s the interesting thing. That was done with zero input from Warren. Voice, photo… we were able to obtain that with information that’s out there, and replicate those actions and that voice.”<\/p>\n

\"IMAGE IMAGE DISTRIBUTED FOR SEE’S CANDIES – Bershire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel poses with a cutout of himself at the See’s Candies booth during the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting on Friday, May 1, 2026 in Omaha, Neb. (John Peterson\/AP Content Services for See’s Candies) \u00b7 ASSOCIATED PRESS <\/p>\n

It\u2019s notable that they leaned into the deepfake because it\u2019s a problem that Buffett has been wrestling with for years. Just a few months ago, Berkshire put out a rare press release about deepfakes titled: “It\u2019s Not Me.<\/a>“<\/p>\n

“Scamming has always been part of the American scene,” Buffett said of deepfakes<\/a> at the 2024 meeting. “If I was interested in investing in scamming \u2014 it\u2019s gonna be the growth industry of all time.”<\/p>\n

While Buffett has had to warn specifically of deepfakes of his likeness being used by scammers, Berkshire and its management team have long flagged cyber<\/a> broadly as a major risk. In fact, it\u2019s the second item identified in “Risk Factors” section of the company\u2019s annual report<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Cybersecurity risks could result in economic losses to our businesses and reputational damage.<\/p>\n

We rely on technology in virtually all aspects of our business. Like those of many large businesses, certain of our information systems have been subject to cyber threats, including computer viruses, malicious codes, unauthorized access, phishing efforts, denial-of-service attacks and other cyber-attacks. We expect continued exposure to such attacks in the future and attacks have become more sophisticated and frequent. A significant disruption or failure of our technology systems could result in service interruptions, safety failures, security events, regulatory compliance failures, an inability to protect information and assets against unauthorized users and other operational difficulties. Cyber-attacks perpetrated against our systems could result in loss of assets and critical information and expose us to remediation costs and reputation damage.<\/p>\n

So of course, it\u2019s not surprising that it was the very first topic they addressed during the meeting\u2019s Q&A session.<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s what we\u2019re dealing with when we think of Berkshire and how we have to protect it every day,” Abel said on Saturday. “It can go to deepfakes, and they\u2019re using it to try to penetrate our business. It can be cyber attacks. It\u2019s a great reminder for our team, because that is a significant risk across Berkshire that we\u2019re managing every day. Cyber risk. And it\u2019s one that we take extremely seriously.”<\/p>\n

Are markets complacent about cyber risks? <\/p>\n

While it\u2019s unsettling to think about the risks posed by cyber attacks, it\u2019s encouraging to hear executives, not just at Berkshire<\/a>, confirm that it\u2019s top of mind.<\/p>\n

The fact that we haven\u2019t experienced a market-destabilizing event tied to cyber perhaps speaks to how effective companies and regulators have been at keeping bad actors at bay.<\/p>\n

Hopefully it stays that way.<\/p>\n

Because, for now, market participants are arguably complacent about cyber risks. It rarely comes up in surveys about risk. For example, in BofA\u2019s latest Global Fund Manager Survey, cyber didn\u2019t crack the list of top “tail risks” identified by market pros.<\/p>\n

\"Cyber Cyber attacks don\u2019t often come up in investor surveys about top risks. \u00b7 (Source: BofA via TKer) <\/p>\n

This might be a problem. Because according to TKer Truth No. 8<\/a>: “The most destabilizing risks are the ones people aren\u2019t talking about.”<\/p>\n

Investors and traders not talking about a risk suggests that the risk isn\u2019t priced into markets. That means when the risk materializes, volatility is more likely to spike with prices potentially overshooting to the downside.<\/p>\n

Especially with the rise of AI and increasingly scary stories about related risks, it\u2019s never been more important to be vigilant.<\/p>\n

For now, we put faith in our business leaders and policymakers and hope that they continue to be in front of this.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, CNBC\u2019s Becky Quick asked Buffett about the morning\u2019s deepfake and the risk AI poses to the world.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s scary,” Buffett said. “It\u2019s particularly scary when you have nine countries or so with nuclear weapons and people working on it. We haven\u2019t dealt with it. We don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen.”<\/p>\n

Investing is risky. Bad things often happen. And sometimes, very bad things happen.<\/p>\n

A version of this article first appeared on TKer.co<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A version of this article first appeared on TKer.co Berkshire Hathaway\u2019s annual shareholder meeting was destined to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[29614,1144,33665,14087,33666,3783,23460,33667,669],"class_list":{"0":"post-55458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-warren-buffett","8":"tag-annual-shareholder-meeting","9":"tag-berkshire-hathaway","10":"tag-cyber-risk","11":"tag-cyber-risks","12":"tag-cyber-threats","13":"tag-greg-abel","14":"tag-saturday-morning","15":"tag-see39s-candies","16":"tag-warren-buffett"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116512413763324120","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}