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Warren Buffett has stepped down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, ending more than six decades at the helm of the $1tn conglomerate, with his son Howard Buffett assuming the role immediately as part of a previously outlined succession plan. The 96-year-old Buffett will remain on Berkshire’s board as chairman emeritus, continuing to provide his judgment and perspective to the company. The transition follows Buffett’s decision to step down as chief executive at the end of 2025, when Greg Abel, previously responsible for Berkshire’s noninsurance businesses, succeeded him. Howard Buffett, 71, has served as a Berkshire director since 1993 and has spent decades preparing for the chairman role. Warren Buffett transformed Berkshire from a struggling textile business into a diversified conglomerate spanning insurance, railroads, energy, and manufacturing, alongside a substantial portfolio of publicly traded stocks.

 

CNBC

NPR

New York Times

Wall Street Journal

McDonald’s is overhauling its U.S. value strategy after same-store sales growth slowed to 0.8% last quarter, its weakest performance since early 2025. The company plans to work with franchisees on a longer-term approach to attract value-conscious diners, while introducing temporary menu items and digital offers in the near term. The changes come alongside efforts to improve food quality, restaurant environments, and customer service, including targeted franchisee training. McDonald’s is seeking to reinvigorate U.S. growth amid stronger competition from Burger King. Its new strategy is expected to be a focus of its September 23rd investor day.

 

Bloomberg

OpenAI has published six reports detailing unexpected or concerning model behavior. The incidents include the models generating instructions to get around restrictions imposed on them, hiding mistakes, and fabricating information. The company has also announced a new system to track, investigate and disclose cases of models misbehaving (misalignment). Under the framework, developers will be able to flag incidents for review, and a new set of rules will decide whether the issue is disclosed publicly. "Because we believe in the value of transparency around misalignment, our new framework favors disclosure even when significance is uncertain," OpenAI said.

 

New York Times

Reuters

BBC News

U.S. senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Rick Scott (R-FL) have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate how Amazon and Walmart’s artificial intelligence (AI) shopping assistants handle “Made in USA” claims, citing concerns that the tools may suppress information about domestically produced goods and fail to identify potentially false country-of-origin labels. Their request follows a Columbia University Center for Law and the Economy report which found that Amazon’s Alexa and Walmart’s Sparky could provide information about U.S.-made products after repeated or altered prompts despite initially indicating that such data was unavailable. Amazon rejected claims that it intentionally withholds country-of-origin information and said it is working to improve Alexa’s ability to provide accurate information, while Walmart declined to comment.

 

Reuters

Wall Street Journal

New jobless claims fell sharply last week, providing further evidence of a resilient labor market as the Federal Reserve continues its efforts to curb inflation. Initial claims for unemployment benefits dropped by 10,000 to 196,000 in the seven days to September 12th, according to the Labor Department, below the 207,000 claims economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal had expected. The four-week moving average fell 2,750 to 203,250, while continuing claims, reported with a one-week lag, fell by 39,000 to 1.73m. "The exceptionally depressed number last week might reflect seasonal adjustment issues related to Labor Day, but the underlying picture remains encouraging," said Samuel Tombs, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. "For now, then, the Fed will remain laser-focused on inflation."

 

Bloomberg

Reuters

Wall Street Journal

The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index fell to 37.8 in September from 47.4 in August, but exceeded expectations of 30.5, with indicators for general activity, new orders, and shipments remaining elevated. Employment growth moderated, while price pressures strengthened, with prices paid rising to 48.6 from 40.9 and prices received increasing to 31.3 from 17.7. Businesses remained optimistic about growth over the next six months, although the six-month activity index declined to 52.9 from 73.6, and the forward capital expenditure index fell to 37.1 from 48.2. The decline in expectations could be an early indication that elevated energy prices, tighter financial conditions, and Federal Reserve rate increases are beginning to weigh on economic activity.

 

Continuum Economics

Investing

Disney has named former YouTube executive Adam Smith as chairman of direct-to-consumer for Disney Entertainment, putting him in charge of the company’s global entertainment streaming business. Smith, who joined Disney in 2024 after more than 20 years at YouTube and Google, will oversee streaming strategy, platform development, advertising technology, and emerging technologies as chief executive Josh D’Amaro seeks to make Disney+ a central hub connecting the company’s entertainment, sports, games, and experiences businesses. Joe Earley, previously president of direct-to-consumer for Disney Entertainment, will move into the newly created role of president of Disney Entertainment Television franchise and content strategy.

 

Los Angeles Times

The SEC has proposed to end its oversight of corporate shareholder votes on topics such as climate ​change or executive pay, as part of a broader shift of power away from investors to corporate managers by Wall Street's top regulator, which ​also proposed changes including ending a rule that companies produce annual reports it said duplicate information in their annual Form 10-Ks. SEC Chairman ​Paul Atkins said the regulator lacks the statutory authority to ​oversee shareholder voting and that the area is best run by states.

 

Reuters

Activist investor Jana Partners has called on medical-device maker Cooper Cos. to replace chief executive Albert White and appoint a new board chair, arguing that an urgent overhaul is needed to address what it describes as “chronic underperformance”. Jana has also urged Cooper to engage with potential buyers for its CooperVision contact-lens business and consider selling its fertility and medical-device assets. The demands escalate pressure from Jana roughly a year after it built a stake in Cooper and called for strategic alternatives, including a potential combination of the contact-lens business with Bausch + Lomb. Cooper’s shares have fallen around 16% over the past year, giving the company a market value of approximately $10bn.

 

Wall Street Journal

The U.S. semiconductor industry is projected to face a shortage of up to 157,000 skilled workers by 2030, raising alarms among major sector players including Samsung and Micron. Jon Taylor, executive vice president of Samsung's semiconductor division, expressed his concern, saying: “We just don't see that there's enough technical people in the pipeline.” Despite the U.S. being a leader in chip design, only 3% of engineering graduates enter the semiconductor field annually. To combat this, universities including Purdue and Arizona State are launching new programs to train students for chip roles. However, U.S. salaries for chip jobs are often lower than those in Asia, where bonuses can exceed $500,000. As companies ramp up hiring, the competition for skilled workers intensifies, with many firms looking overseas to fill gaps. “If we don't move more quickly and aggressively than we have before, we will lose,” observed Mitch Daniels, interim president of Purdue.

 

CNBC

Bosch labour representatives are calling for the drafting of EU regulations to promote local production to stem job losses ‌in the auto supply sector.  "The transformation of our industry will only ​succeed if we keep value creation ​and jobs in Europe," said Frank Sell, ⁠head of the general works council ​at the firm's Mobility unit, which represents around 70,000 workers in Germany. He called for "clear 'Made in the EU' rules that give us the time we need to work together to ​become competitive." Bosch plans to shed 13,000 jobs in its core automotive business by the end of the decade.

 

Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered that assets belonging to food company Nestlé and retail group Auchan in Russia be placed under temporary administration. In a decree published on Russia's official legal portal, Putin ordered stakes in the assets to be handed to a little known entity called AO L.E.V. Menedzhment. Moscow has used the temporary-management mechanism since 2023 to take control of assets belonging to companies from countries it considers “unfriendly.”  It has previously been used to take control of the Russian subsidiaries of ‌companies including ⁠Danone and Carlsberg. Nestlé, arguing that as a food producer it supplies essential goods, has continued operating in Russia. Auchan operates 230 supermarkets and hypermarkets across Russia.

 

Copenhagen Post

Kyiv Independent

Bloomberg

Reuters

Research from Deloitte indicates that one in six U.K. workers is paying for an AI tool out of their own pocket to help them do their job, at ​a total cost of nearly £1bn ($1.4bn) annually. The firm's GenAI Workforce Survey of some 25,000 employees found that two-thirds of workers had tried AI tools ​such as ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot, and ​nearly a quarter of them were using the tools daily in their ⁠jobs. Deloitte partner Paul ​Lee observed: "For many workers [AI's] role remains relatively basic, ​focused on searching for information and drafting content ​rather than ⁠supporting more complex work." He added: "The organizations that gain the greatest advantage from AI will be those that move beyond simply providing access ⁠to ​tools and focus on helping people use ​them with the appropriate guardrails and purpose." 

 

Reuters