Warren Buffett and the vice president of his Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger, did not hide the strong mistrust towards Robinhood, the trading APP that has become the meeting point for amateur investors. At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders meeting, Buffett’s words were eloquent: Robinhood’s rise is “a very significant part of the casino aspect” of the stock market over the past year. Buffett specified: “There is nothing illegal, nothing immoral, but I don’t think you can build a company on people who operate in this way.”
Even tougher was Charlie Munger. Referring to Robinhood, Buffett’s right-hand man said that it is “something deeply wrong” and that “we don’t want to make money selling bad stuff to people.” There was no lack of criticism of bitcoin. The success of the cryptocurrency has been called “disgusting”.
Robinhood responded to Warren Buffett’s comments. “If we have to learn anything from the last year, it is that people are tired of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger all over the world acting like they are the only prophets of trading,” reads a post published on the Robinhood website by Jacqueline Ortiz Ramsay, the company’s Head of Public Policy Communications. Robinhood said there is an “old guard who doesn’t want ordinary US citizens to make room on Wall Street and thus reduce themselves to insulting. The future is diversified, more educated and driven by interactive technologies that have the power to make everyone equal “.