Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett is the "greatest PR person of recent times" and has "managed to achieve a snow job that has conned virtually everyone in the press," Wisdom Tree Investments Chairman Michael Steinhardt told CNBC Tuesday. "It is remarkable that he continues to do it."
Steinhardt founded Steinhardt Partners LP, one of the most successful hedge fund managers, in 1967. Back then "you had to be a special money manager to run a hedge fund because you were expected to do well," he said. "It's a very different world today."
Steinhardt, who retired in 1995, said the basis for Buffett's public relations job isn't so much Berkshire's portfolio outperforming the Standard & Poor's 500 in the past — he said he doubts it — but the 80-year-old Buffett's relatively recent philanthropy.