Personal life

Buffett married Susan Thompson in 1952. They had three children, Susie, Howard, and Peter. The couple began living separately in 1977, although they remained married until her death in July 2004. Their daughter Susie lives in Omaha and does charitable work through the Susan A. Buffett Foundation and is a national board member of Girls, Inc. In 2006, on his seventy-sixth birthday, he married his never-married longtime-companion, Astrid Menks, who was then sixty years old. She had lived with him since his wife's departure in 1977 to San Francisco. It was Susan Buffett who arranged for the two to meet before she left Omaha to pursue her singing career. All three were close and holiday cards to friends were signed "Warren, Susie and Astrid".Susan Buffett briefly discussed this relationship in an interview on the Charlie Rose Show shortly before her death, in a rare glimpse into Buffett's personal life.

His 2006 annual salary was about $100,000, which is small compared to senior executive remuneration in comparable companies.In 2007, and 2008, he earned a total compensation of $175,000, which included a base salary of just $100,000. He lives in the same house in the central Dundee neighborhood of Omaha that he bought in 1958 for $31,500, today valued at around $700,000 (although he also does have a $4 million home in Laguna Beach, California). In 1989 after having spent nearly 10 million dollars of Berkshire's funds on a private jet, Buffett sheepishly named it "The Indefensible." This act was a break from his past condemnation of extravagant purchases by other CEOs and his history of using more public transportation.

He remains an avid player of the card game bridge, which he learned from Sharon Osberg, and plays with her and Bill Gates. He spends twelve hours a week playing the game.In 2006, he sponsored a bridge match for the Buffett Cup. Modeled on the Ryder Cup in golf, held immediately before it, and in the same city, a team of twelve bridge players from the United States took on twelve Europeans in the event.

Warren Buffett worked with Christopher Webber on an animated series with chief Andy Heyward, of DiC Entertainment, and then A Squared Entertainment. The series features Buffett and Munger, and teaches children healthy financial habits for life.

Buffett was raised Presbyterian but has since described himself as agnostic when it comes to religious beliefs. In December 2006 it was reported that Buffett does not carry a cell phone, does not have a computer at his desk, and drives his own automobile,a Cadillac DTS.

Mr Warren Buffet wears tailor-made suits from the Chinese label Trands, earlier he used to wear Ermenegildo Zegna.

Lineage
Buffett's DNA report revealed that his paternal ancestors hail from northern Scandinavia, while his maternal ancestors most likely have roots in Iberia or Estonia.Despite widespread suggestions to the contrary, and the casual friendship which has developed between their families, Warren Buffett has no clear relation to the well-known singer Jimmy Buffett.

Politics
In addition to other political contributions over the years, Buffett has formally endorsed and made campaign contributions to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. On July 2, 2008, Buffett attended a $28,500 per plate fundraiser for Obama's campaign in Chicago hosted by Obama's National Finance Chair, Penny Pritzker and her husband, as well as Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett.Buffett backed Obama for president, and intimated that John McCain's views on social justice were so far from his own that McCain would need a "lobotomy" for Buffett to change his endorsement.During the second 2008 U.S. presidential debate, candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, after being asked first by presidential debate mediator Tom Brokaw, both mentioned Buffett as a possible future Secretary of the Treasury. Later, in the third and final presidential debate, Obama mentioned Buffett as a potential economic advisor. Buffett was also finance advisor to California Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger during his 2003 election campaign.

Writings
Warren Buffett's writings include his annual reports and various articles.

He warned about the pernicious effects of inflation:

“ The arithmetic makes it plain that inflation is a far more devastating tax than anything that has been enacted by our legislatures. The inflation tax has a fantastic ability to simply consume capital. It makes no difference to a widow with her savings in a 5 percent passbook account whether she pays 100 percent income tax on her interest income during a period of zero inflation, or pays no income taxes during years of 5 percent inflation. ”

In his article The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville, Buffett refuted the academic Efficient-market hypothesis, that beating the S&P 500 was "pure chance", by highlighting a number of students of the Graham and Dodd value investing school of thought. In addition to himself, Buffett named Walter J. Schloss, Tom Knapp, Ed Anderson (Tweedy, Brown Inc.), Bill Ruane (Sequoia Fund, Inc.), Charles Munger (Buffett's own business partner at Berkshire), Rick Guerin (Pacific Partners, Ltd.), and Stan Perlmeter (Perlmeter Investments).

In his November, 1999 Fortune article, he warned of investors' unrealistic expectations:

“ Let me summarize what I've been saying about the stock market: I think it's very hard to come up with a persuasive case that equities will over the next 17 years perform anything like--anything like--they've performed in the past 17. If I had to pick the most probable return, from appreciation and dividends combined, that investors in aggregate--repeat, aggregate--would earn in a world of constant interest rates, 2% inflation, and those ever hurtful frictional costs, it would be 6%. ”

Philanthropy
The following quotation from 1988, respectively, highlights Warren Buffett's thoughts on his wealth and why he long planned to re-allocate it:

“ I don't have a problem with guilt about money. The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It's like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GDP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing. I don't do that though. I don't use very many of those claim checks. There's nothing material I want very much. And I'm going to give virtually all of those claim checks to charity when my wife and I die. (Lowe 1997:165–166) ”

From a NY Times article: "I don't believe in dynastic wealth," Warren Buffett said, calling those who grow up in wealthy circumstances "members of the lucky sperm club."Buffett has written several times of his belief that, in a market economy, the rich earn outsized rewards for their talents:

“ A market economy creates some lopsided payoffs to participants. The right endowment of vocal chords, anatomical structure, physical strength, or mental powers can produce enormous piles of claim checks (stocks, bonds, and other forms of capital) on future national output. Proper selection of ancestors similarly can result in lifetime supplies of such tickets upon birth. If zero real investment returns diverted a bit greater portion of the national output from such stockholders to equally worthy and hardworking citizens lacking jackpot-producing talents, it would seem unlikely to pose such an insult to an equitable world as to risk Divine Intervention. ”

His children will not inherit a significant proportion of his wealth. These actions are consistent with statements he has made in the past indicating his opposition to the transfer of great fortunes from one generation to the next. Buffett once commented, "I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing".

In 2006, he auctioned his 2001 Lincoln Town Car on eBay to raise money for Girls, Inc.

In 2007, he auctioned a luncheon with himself that raised a final bid of $650,100 for a charity.

In 2006, he announced a plan to give away his fortune to charity, with 83% of it going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In June 2006, Buffett gave approximately 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (worth approximately US$30.7 billion as of 23 June 2006)making it the largest charitable donation in history and Buffett one of the leaders in the philanthrocapitalism revolution.The foundation will receive 5% of the total donation on an annualised basis each July, beginning in 2006. Buffett also will join the board of directors of the Gates Foundation, although he does not plan to be actively involved in the foundation's investments.

This is a significant shift from previous statements Buffett has made, having stated that most of his fortune would pass to his Buffett Foundation. The bulk of the estate of his wife, valued at $2.6 billion, went to that foundation when she died in 2004.

He also pledged $50-million to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, in Washington, where he has served as an adviser since 2002.

On 27 June 2008, Zhao Danyang, a general manager at Pure Heart China Growth Investment Fund, won the 2008 5-day online "Power Lunch with Warren Buffett" charity auction with a bid of $2,110,100. Auction proceeds benefit the San Francisco Glide Foundation.