Former Berkshire Hathaway Executive Has Only The Nicest Things To Say About Warren Buffett

On March 30, 2011, Warren Buffett penned an open letter expressing support for his former lieutenant, David Sokol, whose trading activities had been called into question. “Neither Dave nor I feel his Lubrizol purchases were in any way unlawful,” Buffett wrote. Then, a month later, he told shareholders and reporters gathered at the BKR annual meeting in Omaha that, actually, Sokol was a degenerate bum; a piece of garbage that needed to be taken out, lest it stink up the place. (Actual words: “inexcusable,” “inexplicable,” in violation of “the company’s insider-trading rules and code of ethics.” Buffett added that Berkshire “had turned over some very damning evidence” re: Sokol to the Securities and Exchange Commission, to boot.) Though Sokol did not publicly respond to the comments at the time, they presumably stung quite a...