Consume Product

The current trend will not continue. Consoomers are tapped out due to inflation - which means everything other then the basic necessities for life will sell less. No new car, no new iphone every year, and so forth. Inflation has probably close to peaked - shit won't get much more expensive because no one will have the money to buy it.

You are right though, even at "normal" inflation of 2-3% any uninvested money is losing money. I think it's one of two things...
- He feels he's nearing the end of his life, and just to quickly copy-paste from an article "Buffett, 93, plans to give away more than 99% of the fortune he built at Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire, which he has run since 1965, with his children serving as executors of his will.". He's cashing out to make sure his wishes are fulfilled rather then his kids "knowing better" and keeping the money in the markets. He wants his legacy to be that he donated X amount, not that his kids fucked up and that amount is 40% lower.
- We're coming up to US elections. Last time when Trump won, USD went WAY up. It could be a forex play and he's betting heavily that Trump will win.

Or who knows. Maybe he's cashing out because he wants a scrooge mcduck-esque vault of gold coins to swim in.

Or I suppose it could be a reaction to the possible introduction of tax on unrealized gains. I didn't read how that tax is supposed to work but it's possible that in his case. I'm not going to purport to be a specialist in that as i'm sure he has an immensely complicated tax structure to pay as little as possible, but it might be cheaper to realize his gains now then pay tax on unrealized gains later, as his unrealized gains might be much larger. It's also possible that he expects the unrealized gains tax to put downward pressure on the market as it would encourage people to sell.