- Warren Buffett praised Apple CEO Tim Cook for making more money for his company than he ever did.
- The Berkshire Hathaway CEO praised Cook as a worthy successor to Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.
- Berkshire sold two-thirds of its Apple stake in the first three quarters of 2024.
Warren Buffett hailed Tim Cook as a one-of-a-kind leader after selling two-thirds of his stake in Apple last year.
The famed investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO praised the tech titan's CEO in his opening comments at his conglomerate's annual meeting on Saturday.
"Tim Cook has made Berkshire a lot more than I have made Berkshire," Buffett quipped to laughter in the auditorium, nodding to the fact that Berkshire's roughly $35 billion investment in Apple between 2016 and 2018 grew to $173 billion by the end of 2023.
However, Berkshire sold about 67% of its Apple shares in the first nine months of 2024, leaving only 300 million shares at the end of December, worth about $62 billion at Friday's closing price of $205 per share.
Buffett also gave Cook perhaps the best compliment when he favorably compared him to his iconic predecessor and Apple's cofounder.
"I knew Steve Jobs briefly," Buffett said, adding that the creator of the iPhone "of course did things that nobody else could have done."
"Nobody but Steve could have created Apple, but nobody but Tim could have developed it like it has," Buffett added.
Since Cook took the reins in 2011, Apple stock has soared from under $15 on a split-adjusted basis to $205, a roughly 14-fold gain, boosting Apple's market capitalization to north of $3 trillion.
