Warren Buffett hasn’t publicly backed Biden despite past Democratic endorsements

Warren Buffett has been surprisingly quiet about the presidential election.

The Oracle of Omaha hasn’t publicly backed Joe Biden, but Buffett hosted a fundraiser for Biden’s former boss, Barack Obama, in 2011, and he fully backed Hillary Clinton in her 2016 campaign against Donald Trump.

The 90-year-old investing legend, who is worth about $75 billion according to wealth tracker lists from Forbes and Bloomberg, even chided Trump four years ago for not releasing his tax returns.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB), the conglomerate that Buffett runs, did not respond to requests for comment about the election. The Biden campaign had no comment.

And while Biden’s proposed tax hikes would targetcorporations and the super affluent, Buffett has already advocated for the rich to pay a greater share of their wealth.

Data from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that Buffett donated to both the 2012 Obama and Clinton 2016 campaigns, but shows no records of him donating to Biden.

Warren Buffett smiles during an interview in Omaha, Nebraska, in May 2018.

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Buffett continues to contribute to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as he did in 2016 and during the 2018 midterm elections, but the last individual candidate he has donated to was Arizona’s Democratic senate candidate Mark Kelly, a former astronaut who is currently leading in the the polls against Republican Senator Martha McSally.

Berkshire Hathaway employees, however, are backing Trump and Biden almost equally. The Center for Responsive Politics data show that individual Berkshire workers have donated about $200,000 to the Trump campaign and nearly $225,000 to Biden.

The Berkshire workers’ show of support for Trump has even landed Berkshire Hathaway in a fund called the Point Bridge GOP Stock Tracker ETF (MAGA), which trades under the symbol MAGA.

Point Bridge — the investment firm that manages an index on which the fund is based — invests in 150 S&P 500 companies that have the highest number of workers and political action committees (PACs) that have donated to Republicans in the past two election cycles.

A man wears a MAGA hat as he waits in line to attend the "Great American Comeback Event" campaign rally with US President Donald Trump at Xtreme Manufacturing in Henderson, Nevada on September 13, 2020. (Photo by Bridget BENNETT / AFP) (Photo by BRIDGET BENNETT/AFP via Getty Images)

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Still, Biden appears to have the ear of the Oracle — even if there is no official campaign endorsement or donation from Buffett to show for it.

Biden boasted during a virtual shareholder event earlier this month that he had recently spoken with Buffett on the phone and that the two share a desire “to lead the whole damn world in a way that no one else can.”

“There’s no limit to America’s future. The only thing that’s going to tear America apart is America itself,” Biden said.

That sentiment is very Buffett-esque. Buffett has often maintained a mantra that America is the best country in the world no matter what happens in Washington.

Along those lines, Buffett refused to discuss the election at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting in May, which was held virtually from Omaha.

“I’m not going to talk about any political figures at all or politics generally this afternoon,” Buffett said.

The closest Buffett has come to commenting on the current political environment occurred at Berkshire’s May event, when he effusively praised how Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has handled the government’s response to the pandemic.

CNN’s Sarah Mucha contributed to this story.