Billionaire Charlie Munger—Warren Buffett’s Key Deputy—Dies At 99

Topline

Billionaire Berkshire Hathaway executive Charlie Munger died Tuesday morning in a California hospital, the company said in a press release, after Munger spent decades as a key partner and right-hand man to Warren Buffett.

Key Facts

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett said in the statement the conglomerate “could not have been built to its present status without Charlie’s inspiration, wisdom and participation.”

Munger served as vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and on its board, as well as the boards of Daily Journal Corp. and Costco.

Key Background

Munger, who was born in Omaha, Nebraska, dropped out of the University of Michigan to become a meteorologist in the Army during World War II, but later earned a law degree from Harvard. Munger moved to California after graduating from Harvard in 1948, and practiced real estate law before founding the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olsen in 1962, where he then managed investments at a hedge fund he also founded that year called Wheeler, Munger & Co., according to CNBC. Munger met Buffett at a dinner party in 1959, but had worked at Buffett’s grandfather’s grocery store when he was a kid. He closed the hedge fund in 1975. Three years later, Munger became vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. In 1972, before he worked at Berkshire, Munger had convinced Buffett to sign off on the conglomerate’s $25 million purchase of See’s Candies despite the candy company’s pre-tax annual earnings of about $4 million, CNBC reported, adding that See’s has made over $2 billion in sales for Berkshire since then. Buffett reportedly credited Munger with Berkshire Hathaway’s approach to investing, writing in an annual report, “The blueprint he gave me was simple: Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices,” according to the New York Times. At the annual Berkshire meeting in 2017—a highly anticipated event that draws thousands of people—Munger shared his insight with investors, saying, “I have a friend who says the first rule of fishing is to fish where the fish are. The second rule of fishing is to never forget the first rule. We’ve gotten good at fishing where the fish are.”

Tangent

Like Buffett, Munger was an investor and philanthropist, donating millions to universities. In 2021, Munger designed a residence hall called “Munger Hall,” projected to cost over $1 billion, that would fit over 4,500 students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the New York Times reported. However, the residence hall did not include windows in a majority of the rooms, and was criticized by an architect on UCSB’s design review committee who resigned over the building he said was like “a social and psychological experiment.” UCSB scrapped the plans for the “windowless dorm” this August.

Forbes Valuation

We estimate Munger’s fortune at $2.6 billion.

Further Reading

Warren Buffett’s Deputy Calls Bitcoin ‘Disgusting’ And Bad For Civilization (Forbes)

After a Billionaire Designed a Dorm, an Architect Resigned in Protest (New York Times)