Charles T. “Charlie” Munger, HLLD ’10, died on November 28, 2023, in Santa Barbara, California. He was 99.
Munger, the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, was the right hand of investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett, his longtime business partner. “He was the architect and I was the general contractor,” Buffett once said of their relationship, according to Munger’s obituary in the New York Times.
Munger studied math at U-M but dropped out to serve in the US Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor. With the help of the GI Bill, Munger attended Harvard Law School even though he did not have an undergraduate degree.
After graduating with honors, he moved to California and practiced real estate law, eventually becoming a founding partner of Munger, Tolles & Hills (now Munger, Tolles & Olson, a partnership that includes Ron Olson, ’66).
He began dabbling in investments as a hobby. “But it soon occurred to me that I’d rather be one of our rich and interesting clients than be their lawyer,” Munger told Janet Lowe in her 2000 book Damn Right! Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger.
Munger met Buffet in 1959, and they quickly became friends and each other’s investment advisers.
“Like Warren, I had a considerable passion to get rich,” Munger was quoted as saying in Roger Lowenstein’s 1995 book Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist. “Not because I wanted Ferraris—I wanted the independence. I desperately wanted it. I thought it was undignified to have to send invoices to other people.”
Munger began investing side by side with Buffett, in companies like Wesco Financial and See’s Candies, before officially joining him as vice chairman. For the first year, Munger said, “I kept one toe in the law firm in case my capitalist career cratered.”
Together, Buffett and Munger built Berkshire Hathaway, one of the most successful and largest conglomerates in history. Among other properties, Berkshire Hathaway, which is based in Munger’s hometown, Omaha, Nebraska, owns the insurance giant Geico and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad company. It holds stakes in Coca-Cola, American Express, and other corporate heavyweights. By 2023, it had about 396,000 employees and revenue exceeding $364 billion.
Munger was a significant donor to the University of Michigan and other universities. In 2011, he committed $20 million, one of the largest gifts in the Law School’s history, to refurbish the Lawyers Club. The project brought badly needed upgrades that transformed student rooms and other living areas inside the buildings while preserving the historic and iconic Collegiate Gothic exteriors. The renovated residence portion of the Lawyers Club was named The Charles T. Munger Residences in the Lawyers Club in honor of the gift.
The gift to renovate the Lawyers Club extended Munger’s philanthropic relationship with the Law School, which began in 2007 with a $3 million gift for lighting improvements in public areas of the Law Quadrangle, including the formerly dim interiors of Hutchins Hall and the Reading Room.
In 2013, Munger pledged $110 million to the University to build graduate student housing. At the time, it was the largest single gift in U-M’s history.
Munger is survived by three daughters, Wendy and Molly Munger and Emilie Munger Ogden; three sons, Charles Jr., Barry, and Philip; two stepsons, William and David Borthwick; 15 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.
Portions of this obituary are excerpted from the New York Times obituary that was published on November 28, 2023.
