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‘We lost quite a bit of money’

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Warren Buffett walks the floor ahead of the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on May 3, 2024. 

David A. Grogen | CNBC

OMAHA, Neb. — Warren Buffett revealed that he dumped Berkshire Hathaway’s entire Paramount stake at a loss.

“I was 100% responsible for the Paramount decision,” Buffett said at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting. “It was 100% my decision, and we’ve sold it all and we lost quite a bit of money.”

Berkshire owned 63.3 million shares of Paramount as of the end of 2023, after cutting the position by about a third in the fourth quarter of last year, according to latest filings.

The Omaha-based conglomerate first bought a nonvoting stake in Paramount’s class B shares in the first quarter of 2022. Since then the media company has had a tough ride, experiencing a dividend cut, earnings miss and a CEO exit. The stock declined 44% in 2022 and another 12% in 2023.

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Paramount

Just this week, Sony Pictures and private equity firm Apollo Global Management sent a letter to the Paramount board expressing interest in acquiring the company for about $26 billion. The firm has also been having takeover talks with David Ellison’s Skydance Media.

Paramount has struggled in recent years, suffering from declining revenue as more consumers abandon traditional pay-TV, and as its streaming services continue to lose money. The stock is in the red again this year, down nearly 13%.

Buffett said the unfruitful Paramount bet made him think more deeply about what people prioritize in their leisure time. He previously said the streaming industry has too many players seeking viewer dollars, causing a stiff price war.

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Third Point’s Dan Loeb says he’s sold out of nearly all of his ‘Magnificent 7’ holdings

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Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: TSLA, ENPH, OKLO, BMY

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About half of Americans have a negative view on Tesla and Elon Musk, CNBC survey finds

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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attends a cabinet meeting held by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on March 24, 2025.

Win McNamee | Getty Images

The broad public and investors have something in common these days: They don’t have a lot of love for either Tesla or CEO Elon Musk.

Tesla’s stock has undergone a withering sell-off, and the CNBC All-America Economic survey finds more than 47% of the public have a negative view of the company. Another 27% are positive on the electric vehicle maker, while 24% are neutral. That compares with a third of the public who have a positive view of General Motors with 51% neutral and 10% negative.

Tesla has been under pressure with concern that its founder’s controversial political activities in cutting government employment and backing President Donald Trump and Republicans could be alienating prospective buyers. Protests have sprung up across the nation at Tesla offices.

The survey found Musk to be a highly polarizing figure. Half of the public has a negative view of Musk, compared with 36% who see him positively and 16% who are neutral. Among Democrats, Musk’s net approval (positive minus negative) is -82 and -49 for independents. GOP respondents are +56.

The biggest problem for Tesla may be that many groups who are potential customers are far more positive about electric vehicles than they are about the company.

“Where Tesla is strongest is among the people least likely to buy an EV,” said Micah Roberts, partner at Public Opinion Strategies, the Republican pollster for the survey.

Overall, 35% of Americans are negative on EVs and 33% are positive. Men, however, are +11 in net approval of EVs but evenly divided on Tesla. Young people aged 18-34 are +19 on EV’s but -23 on Tesla. The gap is most stark among Democrats, who are +20 on EV’s but -74 on Tesla.

Further complicating the issue: Republicans are strongly positive on Tesla, but net negative on EV’s.

The survey of 1,000 people nationwide was conducted April 9 through April 13 and has a margin of error of +/-3.1%.

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