Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha” and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) (BRK.A) has never minced words when it comes to his view on gold as an investment. He doesn’t think it’s a productive asset, and Buffett doesn’t invest in non-productive assets. He holds similar views on Bitcoin, which he called ‘probably rat poison squared’ in his 2018 shareholder letter.
“[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head,” Buffett reportedly said in a 1998 speech at Harvard. This encapsulates his skepticism about gold’s role in a productive investment portfolio.
Buffett’s core investment philosophy is rooted in the pursuit of assets that generate income and compound wealth over time. He divides investments into three categories: productive assets (like businesses and farmland), assets that rely on scarcity and demand (like gold), and currency-based assets. Gold, in his view, falls squarely in the second category—an asset that “will never produce anything” and whose value depends on the hope that someone else will pay more for it in the future.
Buffett has repeatedly argued that, unlike stocks or farmland, gold “has no utility” and does not create value. He famously compared the world’s gold stocks to a giant cube worth trillions of dollars, asking investors to imagine choosing between that inert cube and all the productive farmland or leading businesses in the U.S. — a choice he finds obvious in favor of productive assets.
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Despite Buffett’s criticism, gold has seen renewed interest in 2025, recently reaching record highs above $3,539 per ounce. This surge is driven by persistent inflation, geopolitical instability, and concerns about central bank and White House trade policies — factors that historically drive investors toward gold as a “safe haven.” Buffett himself has described gold as “a way of going long on fear,” noting that its price often rises when anxiety grips the markets.
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