Shareholder Arrested After Ranting at Warren Buffet for His Contributions to ‘Woke Culture’

A shareholder was arrested at the legendary annual investor meeting for Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway after ranting about Buffet’s donations to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, his apparent contribution to “woke” politics, and Gates’s association with Jeffrey Epstein. At the end of his statements, he initiated a vote to remove Buffet as the firm’s chair, which failed resoundingly. The man was arrested after refusing to leave the meeting.

“If we had an independent chair, the Company would be less identified with Mr. Buffett’s political activities,” Peter Flaherty, head of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), said when he took the mic to question Buffett. He explained that Buffett has donated billions to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

“If ‘woke’ culture is a disease, then philanthropy is the virus,” Flaherty said. “The Gates Foundation bankrolls the teaching of Critical Race Theory around the country, including that math is inherently racist. The Gates Foundation offers a Gender Identity Toolbox which asserts that gender is the result of ‘socially and culturally constructed ideas.’ This is a lie. Gender is not a cultural construct. It is a genetic and biological fact.” (This is not true.)

Every year, thousands of investors and devotees of Buffet gather at the annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. Dubbed “Woodstock for Capitalists,” the meeting is a huge deal that draws large crowds of powerful people who are there to hang on the words of the man who has helped generate huge returns for Berkshire Hathaway and make many of them rich.

It’s also a chance for investors to address Buffett directly and propose changes to how the firm makes its investments, which was why Flaherty was able to ask Buffett a question.

After his statements on gender,  someone interrupts Flaherty. But he won’t be stopped.  “You are not going to censor what I say, ma’am,” he said. “I’m very sorry. And I appeal to the Chair that I be allowed to continue. Sir?”

Buffet, from his massive stage surrounded by thousands of devotees, told Flaherty to continue but keep it to under three minutes.

“Of Course,” Flaherty said. “We know how much Bill Gates cares about children. He met and traveled with Jeffrey Epstein many times after Epstein was convicted of sex crimes.”

At this point, the nervous crowd finally reacted. On the video of the event, the crowd began to boo, hiss, and groan (which is interesting considering that Gates’s ties to Epstein are the most well-documented and concerning of anything Flaherty said). 

“The Gates Foundation had a huge influence over the COVID response fiasco,” Flaherty said. “Bill Gates defended China’s COVID policies and still discounts the possibility that the virus originated from a lab, even though U.S. intelligence agencies disagree. The Gates Foundation may be the largest single donor to the ‘dark money’ machine known as Arabella Associates.”

Someone in the crowd begins to yell “Cut him off.”

“We are not here to air a personal assault,” Buffet said. He then tells someone to cut off the mic. “You’ve crossed the line.”

“It funds causes like defunding the police that are making American cities unlivable. Money goes, too, to groups conducting,” Flaherty said. The rest of his speech is lost. Someone cut off his mic and the Omaha police arrived. He was arrested for criminal trespassing after refusing to leave and was released on $2,500 bond, $250 of which he paid immediately, according to arrest documents obtained by Motherboard. Flaherty will appear in court May 22.

“I was treated like any other criminal, fingerprinted, handcuffed,” Flaherty told The Daily Signal. “I’ve always been courteous with decorum at the annual shareholder meetings. I didn’t raise my voice. I was not disruptive.”

Flaherty’s proposal to remove Warren Buffet as Chair of Berkshire Hathaway failed. Gates did, indeed, travel with Epstein after Epstein had been convicted of sex crimes. After Flaherty’s removal, Buffet noted that all his donations to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation were personal and that he’d never used Berkshire Hathaway money.