Billionaire Warren Buffett's Son Says Everyone Assumes He's Rich — 8 Out of 10 Messages a Day Are Just 'People Wanting Something From My Dad'

If your last name is Buffett, people assume you're rich. Not just "doing well" rich. Private jet, personal sushi chef, champagne-for-breakfast rich. But according to Howard Buffett—Warren Buffett's son—you'd be wrong. Very wrong.

In a 1990 Fortune interview, Howard explained people often attempt to use him just to get something from his dad. "When I get back to my office this afternoon, there will be nine messages," he said. "Eight of them will be from people wanting something from my dad." That was decades ago. Before viral GoFundMes, LinkedIn pitches, and inboxes flooded with crypto ideas. Howard was already living in the shadow of the world's most famous value investor, fielding daily requests just for having the audacity to share a surname.

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And it wasn't just inbox clutter.

"One night at a restaurant," he recalled, "I pulled out my checkbook to pay the bill, and some guy says, ‘Gee, I wish I had that checkbook!' I didn't have the patience to tell him, ‘No, buddy, you really don't.'"

A Billionaire Dad… But Rent's Still Due

While Warren Buffett built a financial empire out of Omaha, his kids didn't grow up with butlers or gated mansions. In fact, Howard became a farmer—and a grounded one. At one point, he was paying his own father rent for the land. Because, yes, even if your dad is worth over $100 billion, Warren still wants you to understand the value of a dollar and in this case, the value of a lease agreement. 

The Buffett kids—Howard, Susie, and Peter—have long echoed the same message: their dad's money isn't their money.

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Then Came the $600 Million Gift —Sort Of

Now, to be fair, Warren isn't stingy. He's just strategic. In 2012, as NBC News reported, he rang in his 82nd birthday by giving each of his three kids a gift… about $600 million worth of Berkshire Hathaway stock. But there's a twist—this wasn't for shopping sprees or yachts. It was for their charitable foundations.

That move brought each child's philanthropic firepower to a billion-dollar level, while still aligning with their dad's core belief: "You should leave your children enough so they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing."

Translation? You're getting capital—but not carte blanche.

Buffett's Inbox Problem Became Doris's Mission

Of course, when word gets out that you're charitable—your mailbox turns into a wish list. When Warren Buffett pledged in 2006 to give away most of his wealth, Politico reported he was swamped with letters asking for help. Instead of ignoring them, he called in reinforcement: his older sister Doris.

Doris set up the Letters Foundation, a kind of philanthropic triage unit where real people with real problems—often just victims of bad luck—could get help. According to Warren, Doris and her all-women team "believe a lot of people got short straws in life, and she wants to help them." And unlike most billionaire philanthropy, these weren't high-profile causes or gala-funded grants. These were everyday people in crisis, and Doris read their stories one by one.

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So…Is Howard Rich Now?

Back in 1990, Howard insisted he wasn't rich. But since then, he's been entrusted with a charitable foundation sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in assets—and growing. That doesn't make him personally wealthy in the traditional sense, but it does mean he's rich in influence, especially when it comes to causes he cares about—like food security and conservation.

In Buffett World, Legacy Over Luxury

Warren Buffett's legacy isn't just his investment track record—it's how deliberately unspoiled he's kept his children. 

And if you're wondering how Warren himself defines rich? According to Alice Schroeder's biography of Buffett, "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life," he told student as the University of Georgia in 2001, "If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don't care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster."

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