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Berkshire CEO Greg Abel was sworn in as a US citizen in baseball
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel is now a citizen of the United States.
Abel, a longtime Iowa resident born in the Canadian city of Edmonton in 1962, was among nearly a dozen people from 16 countries who participated in the Iowa Cubs’ annual naturalization ceremony Thursday night in Des Moines, before the AAA minor league baseball team played the Buffalo Bisons.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel holds an American flag at a naturalization ceremony held by the Iowa Cubs in Des Moines on June 25, 2026.
Iowa Cubs/Michael Hill
In an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick during the lunch break of Berkshire’s annual meeting last month, Warren Buffett revealed that Abel will receive his U.S. citizenship “very soon” and “succeeded as he has in everything else … it means something to him to be an American citizen.”
“You can’t buy that anywhere – (laughs) – or package it, you know?”
Abel is worth an estimated $1 billion and runs a company worth more than $1 trillion, but he generally keeps a low public profile and his role as CEO of Berkshire was not highlighted at the event, as he released the first pitch before the game.
Greg Abel celebrates after throwing out the first pitch before the Iowa Cubs game against the Buffalo Bisons on June 25, 2026.
Iowa Cubs/Rocco Caruso
A report by NBC affiliate WHO-TV says only that “Greg Abel, a former Canadian citizen” threw out the first pitch and “the ball went home with him, a nice souvenir from his first day as an American.”
It was the 18th annual naturalization event organized by the group, with 533 new citizens sworn in.
The group says another 5,000 candidates have become citizens of other non-game day events at the football stadium in the past six years.
Greg Abel, holding his US Environmental Certificate, stands with Cubbie Bear, the Iowa Cubs mascot, and Stephen Locher, US District Court Judge for the Southern District of Iowa, who conducted the event.
Iowa Cubs/Rocco Caruso
Iowa Cubs General Manager Randy Wehofer told WHO that most of the new residents “worked hard, sacrificed a lot. [and taken] the greatest danger of leaving their home, chasing the American dream many of us were born into, but not all. So I think we can identify that even if it’s not our story. It’s an American story.”
Why it might be the right time for Berkshire to join the Dow 30
I The Dow Jones Industrial Average it is a price-weighted index, a remnant of its creation in 1896 when it was calculated without the aid of modern computers.
Unlike S&P 500 as well as Nasdaq Compositewhich are capitalization-weighted indexes, stocks with higher stock prices have more influence on their calculations than stocks with lower stock prices.
Over the years, that kept Berkshire Hathaway out of the Dow. Warren Buffett’s aversion to stock splits meant the stock price, especially in A sharescurrently worth more than R745,000 each, we would have beaten 29 other stocks, making it, in effect, just the Berkshire index.
The floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 1907, shot secretly with a camera hidden in the cameraman’s sleeve.
Library of Congress
Even the lowest price B sharesnow at $499, it used to be much higher than the average Dow stock.
However, over the past decade, we have seen fewer stock splits as “rolling lot” trading has declined amid the reduction or elimination of commissions and as fractional stocks have become more widely available.
As a result, the average Dow stock price is around $244, with the highest-priced segment, Goldman Sachsit trades at a notional one share of $1020 per share.
On Monday, the parent of Google Alphabetsat a stock price of $337, it will replace Verizon Communications and its $47 stock because, S&P Dow Jones Indices says, “Continuously underpriced stocks have an imperceptible impact on the index.”
There is also Andrew Bary This is Barron’s site thinking Nikeand its $41 dividends, may be next.
And while he admits it’s hard to predict which company will be added, he thinks Berkshire and its $1 trillion market cap will be “a fair touch,” noting “it would be nice to add a conglomerate while its chairman and controlling shareholder Warren Buffett, 95, is still alive.”
“Hitch” Goldman’s weight of 13% means that the Dow is “overweight in financial stocks,” and Berkshire is considered a financial company.
And while Berkshire’s $499 B shares are in the Dow’s ballpark, they’re still roughly double the value of the index’s average, and will be bigger than every other Dow 30 stock except Goldman and A worm ($997).
BUFFETT & BERKSHIRE IN INTERNET HEAVEN
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE CNBC BUFFETT ARCHIVES
‘You Can’t Stop Love’ (2003)
Warren Buffett says that love, not money, makes you successful. He shares his secret to making sure you don’t run out of it.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: How do you define success and happiness? Are they related? And how can one achieve that?
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I tell college students that when you’re my age, you’ll succeed if the people you hope to like you, like you.
I mean, you-if-Charlie and I know a few people who have a lot of money, and they get testimonials, and they put their names on buildings, and the truth is, nobody likes them.
And you know, not their family, not the people who name buildings after them. You know, it’s sad.
And – unfortunately, you know, something you can’t buy. I mean, Charlie and I have talked many times, if we could buy love for a million dollars, you know, I mean? It can be more satisfying than trying and being cute. (Laughter)
But it doesn’t work that way, you know? …
But the good thing about it, of course, is that, you know, you always get back more than you give.
I mean I don’t know if it was Oscar Hammerstein or whatever who said, you know, “A bell isn’t a bell until you ring it, a song isn’t a song until you sing it. Love in the heart isn’t put there to stay. Love isn’t love until you let it out.” And basically, you will always get back more than you give.
And if you give nothing, you get nothing. It’s very easy…
No one I know has—commands the love of the people around them, the people they work with, their families, their neighbors—that is not a success or a feeling of not being a success.
I don’t know how people feel that – when they know that nobody loves them, but I don’t believe they feel very happy.
So it’s very easy. You can’t get rid of love. When you try to take it out, you get back more than you gave. And it’s the best thing.
Charlie, what are you talking about? (Laughter)
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, you don’t want to be like a motion picture executive in California, and they say the funeral was too big because everyone wanted to make sure he was dead. (Laughter)
And there is a similar story about a minister speaking at a funeral saying, “Can’t someone stand up and speak well of the deceased?” And there was this long silence, and finally one young man stood up and said, “Well,” he said, “his brother was very bad.” (Laughter)…
WARREN BUFFETT: Most people in this room will do very well financially. Most of the college students I talk to will do well financially.
And some of them will have very few friends – real friends – as they get older, and others, people won’t be able to do enough.
And I see it around me all the time.
A STOCK WATCH IN BERKSHIRE
BRK.A stock price: $745,140.03
BRK.B stock price: $498.66
BRK.BP/E (TTM): 14.85
Berkshire’s market capitalization: $1,074,089,811,219
Berkshire Cash as of March 31: $397.4 billion (Up 6.5% from Dec. 31)
Excluding Railroad and Debt Relief Bills Payable: $380.2 billion (Up 3.0% from December 31)
Berkshire repurchased $234 million of its shares in Q1 2026.
(All figures are as of date of publication, unless otherwise indicated)
BERKSHIRE’S EQUITY HOLDINGS – Jun. 26, 2026
Berkshire’s top publicly traded shares in the US and Japan, by market value, based on recent closing prices.
Withholding as of March 31, 2026, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s May 15, 2026 13F filing, except for:
- Alphabet, which includes $10 billion in shares Berkshire has agreed to buy outright from the company, as announced on June 1, 2026. Berkshire has not officially disclosed whether the deal has been completed. Included is a combination of Class A and Class C Alphabet shares. The market price is a weighted average of the prices of the two categories.
- Mitsubishi, effective April 30, 2026
A complete list of holdings and current market values is available on CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
Please send any questions or comments about this book to alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don’t send questions or comments to Buffett himself.)
If you haven’t subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.
Also, Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There is a collection here on the Berkshire website.
— Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch
