Warren Buffett: Billionaire investor

A look at the life of the Berkshire Hathaway chairman, who is widely respected for his business smarts and investing acumen.

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Warren Buffett, sometimes called the "Oracle of Omaha," is the third-richest man in the world, with a fortune that Forbes magazine estimates is worth about $50 billion. He leads Berkshire Hathaway, a holdings company valued at about $211 billion in March 2011. Here, the financier is flanked by Bill Gates and another Berkshire Hathaway executive. They join BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu at the unveiling of BYD's new vehicle in Beijing in 2010. Buffett is a major shareholder in the Chinese company.

Andy Wong / AP

Buffett is one of the world's best-known philanthropists. In 2006, he decided to give 99 percent of his fortune to charity and signed over $31 billion of his company's stock to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Later, in 2010, he and the Gateses participated in an initiative they called the "giving pledge," in which 40 wealthy individuals or families pledged to give at least half their wealth to charity. The Gateses and Buffett estimated at the time that their efforts could generate $600 billion in charitable giving. Here, Buffett appears with Bill and Melinda Gates during a 2006 press conference in New York.

Seth Wenig / AP

Buffett received a 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama on Feb. 15, 2011, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House. Though he is the son of a former GOP congressman, Buffett has long been an outspoken Democrat.

Carolyn Kaster / AP

In this 2007 photo, then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton listens as Buffett helps her raise campaign funds in San Francisco. Buffett said during that campaign that he would be happy with either Clinton or then-Sen. Barack Obama as the next president.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Despite his enormous wealth, Buffett has long been an advocate of higher taxes for the wealthy. In August 2011, he penned an opinion piece for the New York Times titled, "Stop coddling the super-rich." In the piece, he wrote, "While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks."

Nati Harnik / AP

Buffett, right, and Charlie Munger, his vice chairman, are projected on a large screen at the 2009 Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in Omaha. The annual event has been nicknamed "Woodstock for Capitalists."

Nati Harnik / AP

Warren Buffett, left, and Bill Gates play table tennis at the 2007 Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting.

Nati Harnik / AP

Buffett stacks his chips in a 2006 charity poker tournament. After he failed to win the game, the Associated Press reported he said, "It's different than bridge. I was confused. I thought the low score won."

Dave Weaver / AP

Buffett is an avid baseball fan and owns a minority stake in the Omaha Royals, the minor league arm of the Kansas City Royals. Here, he throws out the ceremonial first pitch before a Kansas City Royals game on June 11, 2008.

Edward Zurga Jr. / AP

In recent years, Buffett has also invested in two of the U.S.'s largest banks when they were in trouble. In September 2008, as the entire global financial system was in a tailspin, he injected $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. In August 2011, Buffett invested another $5 billion in Bank of America, which is struggling to handle the bad mortgages added to its books through its acquisition of Countrywide Financial.

Jin Lee / AP

Buffett strikes a pose on the "Warren mattress” at the booth of Berkshire-owned Nebraska Furniture Mart, at his company's annual shareholders meeting in 2006.

Nati Harnik / AP

Buffett rides a stuffed bull at the Berkshire-owned Justin Boots booth during a tour of the exhibition hall prior to the 2006 Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting.

Nati Harnik / AP

Warren Buffett has often confessed to having a sweet tooth, and his investment portfolio serves as evidence. In addition to having financial stakes in Coca-Cola, See's Chocolates and Wrigley, he is the owner of Dairy Queen. In this 2008 photo, he holds a Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard at an Omaha Dairy Queen outlet.

Nati Harnik / AP

Actor Ed Asner, right, played Buffett. left, in the HBO film "Too Big To Fail," which aimed to document the behind-the-scenes action in Washington and on Wall Street during the financial crisis. They appeared together on the red carpet for the film's premiere on May 16, 2011, in New York.

Dave Allocca / AP

"Too Big to Fail" wasn't Buffett's first brush with Hollywood. Here, he visits the set of "All My Children" to do a cameo role alongside soap opera icon Susan Lucci. He was slated to come to the aid of Lucci's character Erica Kane while she is in prison on a fraud rap.

Steve Fenn / AP

In a sign that Berkshire Hathaway's annual meetings are hardly all work and no play, Buffett takes time to shake hands with two-time U.S. chess champion Patrick Wolf.

Nati Harnik / AP

Buffett talks with a reporter prior to an appearance before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in June 2010. He told the panel that the credit-ratings companies should not be blamed for failing to see that the housing bubble was bound to burst.

Mark Lennihan / AP

In November 2009, Buffett spent $34 billion to purchase Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. In a statement, Buffett said of the purchase, "Our country's future prosperity depends on its having an efficient and well-maintained rail system." In this April 30, 2010, photo, Buffett and other Berkshire Hathaway executives take a tour of a BNSF passenger train in Omaha.

Nati Harnik / AP

Buffett took time out to play the ukelele at the Fruit of the Loom stand at his company's 2005 shareholder's meeting. Buffett has been known to join his son, recording artist Peter Buffett, onstage for musical performances.

Nati Harnik / AP

Despite his Democratic leanings, Buffett agreed in 2003 to serve as an adviser to GOP gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger. In a statement announcing the move, Schwarzenegger hailed Buffett as "the greatest investor ever, my mentor and my hero."

Kathy Willens / AP

Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert shakes hands with Buffett during a meeting in Jerusalem in 2006. The visit followed Buffett's $4 billion purchase of an 80 percent stake in Iscar Metalworking, an Israeli company.

Moshe Milner / AP

Buffett married his longtime companion, Astrid Menks, in a private ceremony on Aug. 30, 2006, the Omaha World-Herald reported. Here, Buffett and Menks appear at the 2006 Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Elaine Thompson / AP

In 1987, Buffett made a $700 million investment in banking firm Salomon Brothers. However, just four years later, the firm became embroiled in a bond-trading scandal so bad that Buffett stepped in as interim chairman in order to save the company. Here, he testifies before the House Commerce subcommittee on Capitol Hill on Sept. 5, 1991. Buffett apologized on behalf of the investment firm and promised "wholehearted cooperation" with investigators.

Marcy Nighswander / AP

In addition to being a baseball enthusiast, Buffett is a longtime fan of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. He joked to USA Today in 2010, "I've always liked sports. I haven't been that good at it. I've been redshirted now for 61 years. They're just waiting for the right offense."

Nati Harnik / AP

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