No. of Recommendations: 4
In the question, it was not at all clear to me that he meant "the Class A shares that are *not* owned by Buffett" in 2040 or 2050 - the way he leads the question, I think Buffett is going to answer it with regard to his personal shares. He makes clear in the additional commentary that he understands all of Buffett's Class A shares will be converted to Class B shares.
Becky Quick pressed on the Taiwan issue with regard to Apple shares (how he's concerned about China in selling Taiwan Semiconductor). Buffett said he "weighs that in" but Apple is, basically, a brand with VERY high loyalty.
He illustrated Apple's loyalty by saying "if you're an Apple user and somebody offers you $10,000 but the only provision is they'll take away your iPhone and you'll never be able to buy another, you're not gonna take it. He said this is different for Ford. If offered the same $10,000, you'll take it and buy a Chevy.
I like my iPhone, and I've been using one exclusively since 2014, upgrading models as we go along. I was very impressed by how it interfaced with an iPad I had for my job, and the other phone users in my family have iPhones too. But $10K is a lot of money. I don't know how he came to that number, but I'd do the switch for $10K in a heartbeat. I already back up photos from my phone to a portable drive and a windows computer, and my brother switched from Apple to Android a few years ago and has been happy.
That said, I don't know that any of the other phone manufacturers are in a better situation if - heaven forbid - we end up without access to Chinese cell phone factories.
