This Week's Top Five Leadership Stories

Berkshire Hathaway’s New CEO Reshuffles Stock Portfolio

After three months as Berkshire Hathaway’s newest CEO, Greg Abel has already made several major changes to the company’s stock portfolio.

Greg has more than tripled the size of Berkshire Hathaway’s investment in Alphabet and bought more than US$2.6bn worth of Delta Airlines stock after taking over from Warren Buffett at the start of the year.

The conglomerate also removed several stocks, including Visa, Mastercard, Domino’s Pizza, Amazon and United Healthcare after the departure late last year of Todd Combs, who was one of the two investment managers Warren hired to help manage the portfolio.

While Greg has shown enthusiasm in tech companies like Alphabet, Warren famously was always reluctant to buy stock in the industry, saying he didn’t understand them enough to predict the long-term benefits.

However, he did make an exception to this rule after buying a US$1bn stake in Apple in 2016 after he saw how brand-loyal its customers were.

Salesforce Plans to Spend US$300m on Anthropic AI Tokens

In 2025, Salesforce said it planned to cease the hiring of software engineers as AI tools become increasingly more commonplace in software development.

CEO Marc Benioff said he expects the company to spend hundreds of millions on Anthropic tokens to increase the capabilities of its AI coding-tools.

While Marc said the company had no plans to hire more software engineers due to the productivity gains from AI in 2025, he now says coding agents and AI models are changing how engineers work, rather than eliminating them. 

This approach of AI improving efficiency rather than replacing human workers is growing traction throughout the tech industry, with large companies like Anthropic and NVIDIA agreeing that AI should serve as an enhancement to existing workflows, not a tool to upend them.

Speaking on the All-In podcast, Marc said Salesforce plans to spend US$300m on Anthropic tokens in 2026, with plans for most of the tokens to go toward coding-related work. 

He describes AI coding agents as “awesome” and says the investment would lower software development costs while increasing output.

HSBC CEO: AI Will Create and Destroy Jobs

HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery says AI will create and destroy certain jobs across the financial industry, with the bank planning to retrain its workforce to embrace the coming shift.

Speaking at an HSBC investor day event beginning on 19 May, Georges said workers needed to embrace AI-driven change rather than resist it and work with the bank on navigating the new technology.

“We all know generative AI will destroy certain jobs and will create new jobs,” Georges said.

“But my initial mission is I need 200,000 colleagues with us on this journey. However many will be left at the end of the journey isn't the problem.

“The problem is how can we make sure that those 200,000 colleagues have been given all the capabilities, the training, the tools to make themselves future ready, be more productive versions of themselves.”

Georges also said HSBC staff needed to ensure they were “not fighting” the bank over these developments and weren’t “resisting the change”.

He added that getting the bank “future ready” was his top priority as it recognised the “enormous opportunity” in AI.

Starbucks Korea CEO Dismissed over Offensive Promotion

Starbucks’s Korea's CEO has been dismissed after public backlash to the company’s ‘Tank Day’ marketing campaign on the anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising crackdown.

The promotion sparked outcry from customers and several Korean politicians, including President Lee Jae Myung, who criticised the campaign publicly on X, saying: “Out of what twisted resentment did they commit such an act? 

“I am outraged by this inhumane, bottom-feeding behaviour from these low-class peddlers who deny the Republic of Korea's community, basic human rights, and democratic values.”

Many consumers felt the use of “tank” in the campaign referred to vehicles deployed by the military government in May 1980 to intimidate and stop pro-democracy protesters.

The promotion was rolled back hours after its launch and saw Shinsegae, the conglomerate that owns a majority stake in the brand, apologised for "inappropriate marketing" and fired Starbucks Korea’s CEO Sohn Jeong-hyun.

Elon Musk Set to Become Trillionaire following SpaceX IPO

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has announced plans to go public in the US, a move that could position him as the world’s first trillionaire.

The company IPO is also set to be the largest in Wall Street History and could start in June under the ticker symbol SPCX.

SpaceX values itself at US$1.25tn and Elon’s majority ownership of the company means his share could be worth more than US$600bn.

If the company succeeds in its eventual goal of a US$2tn valuation, it would position SpaceX as one of the most valuable companies in the world by market capitalisation.

In 2025, Elon became the first person to achieve a net worth of more than US$500bn, meaning the SpaceX listing could push his total net worth to over US$1tn.

Ruth Foxe-Blader, Managing Partner at Citrine Venture Partners, discussed SpaceX’s IPO, saying: “SpaceX is just an absolutely sprawling, enormous project with so many different selling points, and so many points that really point to the future.”

In 2025, SpacX brought in around US$18.6bn in revenue but saw a net loss of US$4.3bn.

Meanwhile, the company’s balance sheet shows it has US$102bn in assets, such as rockets and other equipment, but also carries US$60.5bn of debt.

Following the IPO, SpaceX says Elon will hold 85% voting control over the company and will serve as its CEO, Chairman and Chief Technology Officer.