Warren Buffett made clear he would not publicly back either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump in the race for the White House. His nearly trillion-dollar conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, issued a statement on social media warning of “fraudulent” endorsements. The revered investor, meanwhile, told The Wall Street Journal he feared someone could try to mislead voters by impersonating his voice or likeness, possibly using an AI-generated deepfake.
But Buffett hasn’t always been as anxious about the political limelight. In fact, the 94-year-old’s silence this election season is a relatively new development for a business leader with a history of backing Democrats. The son of a Republican Congressman, he’s previously donated millions in support of abortion rights and has helped raise money for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, appearing onstage with the latter multiple times during her 2016 presidential campaign.
This time, however, it appears Buffett has decided speaking up isn’t worth the trouble, hinting that he’ll explain why at Berkshire’s next shareholder meeting in May. According to scholars researching the implications of CEO activism, his choice to stay quiet makes perfect sense.
“I think he’s sort of seen the writing on the wall,” said Vanessa Burbano, an associate professor of business in the strategy area at Columbia Business School. “We’ve seen backlash for a lot of companies and CEOs that that have taken political stances.”
Of course, some other high-profile executives, however, haven’t been so reluctant to weigh in, most notably Elon Musk. The world’s richest man has enthusiastically joined Trump on the campaign trail and spent at least $75 million to get swing state voters to the polls.
Meanwhile, the electoral battle in Buffett’s hometown of Omaha, where Berkshire is headquartered, could plausibly decide who takes the White House. While Nebraska is a firmly red state overall, it’s one of only two states (along with Maine) that does not award its electoral votes using a winner-take-all system.
The state’s second district, which consists of Omaha and its surroundings, is very much up for grabs. There’s a scenario in which its single electoral vote could determine whether Harris gets to the magical number of 270—or whether the race heads to the House of Representatives to break a 269-269 tie.
However, Buffett has apparently resisted any temptation to influence the race. The Oracle of Omaha, as he is known, is famously committed to putting shareholders first.
Whether studying the effects of CEO activism on employees, customers, or other stakeholders, Burbano said her research suggests the risks outweigh the benefits. Individuals who disagree with the views espoused from the corner office, she said, typically react very negatively.
“And then those who kind of agree with the stance just sort of go on with their day,” she said.
Buffett explained as much during Berkshire’s annual meeting in 2022.
“You’re going to make a whole lot more people sustainably mad than you can make temporarily happy by speaking on any subject,” he said. “And on certain subjects, they will take it out on our companies.”
A forthcoming paper co-authored by Burbano, meanwhile, suggests firms benefit when executives actively communicate that they will not publicly take a political stance. Buffett, of course, has chosen to do just that this time around.
“I’ve decidedly backed off,” he said at Berkshire’s 2022 shareholder meeting. “I don’t want to say anything that will get attributed basically to Berkshire and have somebody else bear the consequences of what I talk about.”
CEOs go back to staying quiet
Not long ago, many chief executives felt they needed to take the opposite tack. A recent paper co-authored by John Busenbark, an associate management professor at the University of Notre Dame, suggests CEOs with conservative leanings have sometimes felt compelled to back seemingly “liberal” stances to please their stakeholders.
The study analyzed corporate pushback to North Carolina’s controversial “bathroom bill,” a 2016 law that required people to use public restrooms that matched the sex on their birth certificate. The bill was met with widespread opposition and eventually repealed.
Four years later, Busenbark said, the murder of George Floyd and subsequent movements for social justice convinced many CEOs that they needed to take positions on certain political issues. Other chief executives, he said, felt they had more discretion to broadcast their own beliefs.
“For a while, that appeared to represent the new normal,” Busenbark, who teaches at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, wrote in an email to Fortune, “as even shareholders were clamoring for more sociopolitical involvement from firms and their chief executives.”
That seems like a long time ago, however. Brands like Lowe’s, Ford, John Deere, Harley Davidson, Jack Daniel’s, and Tractor Supply have all scaled back diversity and inclusion initiatives (DEI) after facing blowback.
That’s not necessarily true of most firms, but companies ranging from GE to Target have been picked on by activist shareholders for environmental and social initiates or for taking progressive stances. In 2023, sales of Bud Light famously plunged after an ad campaign featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney sparked a conservative boycott.
“The resulting fallout has dampened CEO political activism and has even motivated many top executives to construct policies that prevent future political involvement from the firm,” Busenbark wrote.
Warren Buffett and other executives have previously waded into the political arena feet first. However, many of them now see too many perils to dive back in.
