Buffett Most Well-Liked U.S. Billionaire

According to a recent poll by Reuters and Ipsos, the U.S. public does not have a particularly positive opinion of billionaires. The exception might be Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, who a small majority of 52 percent of Americans view favorably. Buffett, who is 94 years old, announced Monday that he was stepping down from his role as CEO at the end of the year while remaining chairman.

Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway in the 1960s and turned it into a conglomerate, becoming a star investor, philanthropist and one of the richest people in the world in the process while managing the impossible feat of maintaining a "guy next door" image. Due to his success, Buffett business and investment advice became sought after worldwide.

While there have been some, scandals and controvercies surrounding Buffett and his company have remained somewhat tame over the years, aiding to his relatively positive image. This is in contrast to other less popular U.S. billionaires like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (29 percent favorability) and Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg (26 percent favorability), which have been heavily criticized for business decisions, private behavior or both. As of February, Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk was rated slightly more favorable, with 39 percent of Americans expressing the sentiment, but due to his ongoing work with the unpopular Trump administration downsizing initiative DOGE, this could have slipped more. Microsoft founder Bill Gates, like Buffett heavily involved in philanthropy and comparably scandal-free, had an approval rating of 49 percent as of the latest survey data.