A parent with very different businesses
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is a Delaware holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. It controls insurers, BNSF railroad, Berkshire Hathaway Energy and numerous manufacturing, retail and service businesses. It also holds listed equity investments. Owning shares in a listed company does not make it an operating subsidiary: its revenue and employees are not automatically added to the group. That distinction matters both for the accounts and for correctly attributing occupational health and safety practices.
A transformation from textiles
The current name dates to the 1955 merger of Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates and Hathaway Manufacturing, both with nineteenth-century roots. Warren Buffett began buying shares through his investment partnership in 1962 and took control in 1965. The 1967 National Indemnity acquisition opened a period centred on insurance and reinvesting capital. Textile operations ended in 1985. Buffett shaped the financial and industrial transformation; he did not found the original textile companies.
Berkshire Hathaway: fifty-year retrospective, 2014 annual report
Insurance, investment and operating businesses
Insurance generates premiums and future claims obligations. Pending payment of some claims, part of the funds can be invested; Berkshire calls an approximation of these net resources float. It is neither extra revenue nor money without obligations. Float was approximately $176 billion at year-end 2025. The wider model combines subsidiary earnings, acquisitions and long-term capital allocation. GEICO, National Indemnity and General Re represent different insurance businesses within that structure.
Rail, energy, manufacturing and services
BNSF transports freight in North America; BHE includes electricity, gas and other operations. Precision Castparts makes demanding industrial components, Marmon groups manufacturing businesses, and McLane distributes products. NetJets, Clayton Homes and See’s Candies are among other brands. This diversity limits any single safety description: railway maintenance, electrical work, machining, logistics and offices need their own assessments. OxyChem joined in January 2026, according to the quarterly report; that change does not retrospectively alter the 2025 revenue boundary.
Berkshire Hathaway: 2025 annual report · Berkshire Hathaway: third-quarter 2026 report
Revenue with an explicit methodological note
The 2025 US GAAP accounts report consolidated revenue of $371,444 million and net earnings attributable to Berkshire shareholders of $66,968 million. Revenue includes earned premiums, sales, services, leasing and investment income such as interest and dividends. Investment gains of $39,078 million appear separately and are not added to the selected revenue measure. The rounded $44.5 billion of operating earnings highlighted in the letter is a different management measure from net earnings; this profile does not label it GAAP operating profit.
Greg Abel leads the period beginning in 2026
Gregory E. Abel became CEO on 1 January 2026. Warren Buffett remains board chairman, and Ajit Jain remains vice chairman for insurance. The 2026 proxy separates executive management from board governance, so presenting Buffett as current CEO would be incorrect. Its 4 March ownership table gives Buffett 30.2% of aggregate voting power and 13.7% of economic interest. The two share classes make voting power and economic ownership different measures.
Berkshire Hathaway: 2026 proxy statement · Berkshire Hathaway: 2025 annual report
Decentralisation also shapes workforce management
Berkshire and its operating subsidiaries employed approximately 387,800 people at year-end 2025: about 80% in the United States and 19% represented by unions. Each business develops hiring, training, wellbeing and safety policies suited to its operations. The parent retains governance and oversight responsibilities while subsidiaries make many operational decisions. That structure requires identifying the company, site, period and population behind a safety figure. A BHE rate does not describe injuries across all Berkshire businesses.
BNSF: measuring track during service
BNSF introduced ODIN in 2025 after two years of pilot testing. Mounted beneath locomotives, it uses sensors and lasers to measure track gauge, level and alignment while revenue-service trains operate. The company reports more than 150,000 miles measured in 2025. The innovation changes observation frequency without always requiring a separate inspection train. Announced expansion to more locomotives and greater coverage remains a plan, not completed volume or proof of injuries prevented.
From an image to a verifiable intervention
THOR complements those measurements with cameras beneath track-geometry vehicles. BNSF reports that three units imaged 165,000 miles and identified 1,900 defects in 2025. Processing sends information to specialists who validate, prioritise and dispatch crews to assess and repair. That response loop is the relevant preventive feature: obtaining an image is insufficient without confirmation and action. These railway counts are neither workplace injuries nor outcomes for every Berkshire subsidiary.
BHE: an indicator with a population and denominator
Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s 10-K defines its recordable incident rate as work-related injuries per 100 full-time workers during the year. For 2025 it reports 0.46 for BHE overall, with separate company values including 0.69 at PacifiCorp and 0.66 at MidAmerican Energy. The document also describes specific risk training and operational accountability. The rate must retain its definition and scope; it cannot be added to another rate or automatically equated with injury frequency per million hours.
Precision Castparts: evacuation and coordination
Greg Abel’s letter describes a major fire at a Precision Castparts facility in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, in February 2025. According to that corporate account, every employee onsite was safely evacuated and the team supplied layouts and hazard information to emergency responders. Production was redistributed to other facilities. This is a specific company-reported response and continuity case, not an independent cause investigation or proof of no exposure or harm throughout the surrounding area.
PacifiCorp: mitigation and continuing litigation
BHE subsidiary PacifiCorp faces litigation over the 2020 and 2022 wildfires. In James, the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed and remanded on 8 April 2026 because of a jury instruction extending the evidence to all class members. This was not a blanket finding of no liability. The third-quarter report states that the state Supreme Court accepted review and heard argument on 3 November 2026. The matter remained unresolved when this profile was checked. Infrastructure and community safety are relevant but are not counted as an occupational injury rate.
Oregon Court of Appeals: James v. PacifiCorp, 8 April 2026 · Berkshire Hathaway: third-quarter 2026 report
Electrical controls addressing wildfire risk
BHE’s report details fault-detection relays and rapid line de-energisation, vegetation management, inspections and preventive shutoffs during extreme wildfire risk. Shutoffs require coordination with authorities and weather analysis because removing power also affects people and services. Network improvement must consider asset integrity, employee safety, continuity and community protection together. Describing a mitigation plan does not establish that every action is implemented or residual risk is zero.
Lessons from a decentralised structure
The case is useful for tracing responsibility to where work happens. The parent allocates capital and oversees; each subsidiary must translate that into assessment, maintenance, training and response. BNSF connects detection with repair, BHE publishes a defined indicator, and Precision Castparts documents an evacuation. None of these examples certifies the whole conglomerate. This is editorial analysis of public sources.
Berkshire Hathaway: 2025 annual report · BNSF: ODIN and THOR rail inspection technologies · Berkshire Hathaway Energy: 2025 Form 10-K
Frequently asked questions
Is Buffett still CEO?
No. Greg Abel took over on 1 January 2026. Buffett remains board chairman. [1]
Are sales of all its listed investments added?
No. The profile uses published consolidated revenue. Holding shares in another business does not mean consolidating its sales or workforce. [1]
Does the 0.46 rate represent all Berkshire?
No. It concerns BHE in 2025 and is defined per 100 full-time workers. It is not a conglomerate-wide rate. [1]
Are the wildfire lawsuits resolved?
No. The April 2026 James appeal decision was under Oregon Supreme Court review, with argument on 3 November. Those procedural states are distinct from settlements of other claims. [1] · [2]
