Warren Buffett disowned his granddaughter in 2006, writing that he had never accepted her as his grandchild, legally or emotionally.
Buffett has largely avoided publicly discussing what happened between them. In the video below, Nicole Buffett tells her side of the story.
Nicole had grown up as part of the Buffett family after Warren’s son Peter adopted her. She visited Warren in Omaha, called him Grandpa, and Warren’s wife Susan even referred to Nicole as one of her “adored grandchildren.”
But being the granddaughter of one of the richest men in the world never meant living like one.
Warren paid for her education, but Nicole didn’t have access to his fortune. She worked with children at Family Human Services in San Francisco and built her own life while carrying one of the most famous surnames in American business.
Then their relationship fell apart after Nicole appeared in The One Percent, a documentary about wealth inequality.
She later received a letter from Buffett telling her that he had not emotionally or legally adopted her as a grandchild, and that the rest of his family had not adopted her as a niece or cousin either.
One detail made the letter even more painful.
Buffett signed it simply “Warren.”
Nicole still had a card from only a year earlier signed “Grandpa.”
One of the richest men in the world had spent years as her grandfather. Then a letter told her he no longer considered himself one.
Do you think Buffett had the right to draw that line, or did he take it too far?
Save the video to finish Nicole’s story later, and follow for more heartbreaking stories from behind the lives of the world’s most famous billionaires.