Life advice from Warren Buffett imposter goes viral

The real Warren Buffett this week revealed he'd added to his already large stake in iPhone-maker Apple. Photo / AP

High-profile investor Warren Buffett has long been looked up to for his financial wisdom.

One of his most widely-quoted maxims is an extremely simple approach to growing wealth:

"Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1."

But Twitter users were equally enamoured by what they thought was the 88-year-old's advice for young people and views on what counts as "cool".

Tweets seemingly from the Oracle of Omaha, as Buffett is known, were shared hundreds of thousands of times, including by hip-hop artists Kayne West.

The trouble was that they didn't come from the Berkshire Hathaway chief executive, but a parody account.

Anyone looking closely would have noticed that the account (@warrenbuffet99) misspells his name.

While the real Buffett is on Twitter, his account is hardly active and believed to be under the control of one his employees.

Twitter has since suspended the fake Buffett account, reports Business Insider.

Back in the real world, Buffett this week revealed he'd added to his already large stake in iPhone maker Apple.

Buffett likes the technology giant because of its devoted customers, and has built up his stake in the company by "just a little" since his last regulatory filing, he said on Thursday

"They've got to keep having the product that this huge clientele regards as indispensable," Buffett said of Apple. For customers, "the iPhone is enormously under-priced" compared with the utility it offers, he said.

Berkshire has been piling more money into Apple, increasing that stake to 252 million shares as of June 30. The investment is worth more than US$50 billion and makes Berkshire the third-biggest shareholder in Cupertino, California-based Apple, with a more-than 5 per cent stake, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Buffett has expanded his company into a conglomerate with a US$520 billion market cap and footholds in the railroad business, insurance industry and energy sector.

- additional reporting: Bloomberg