Berkshire Hathaway Raises Google Parent Alphabet Stake By 224% Under Greg Abel

Berkshire Hathaway has made one of the biggest shake-ups to its equity portfolio in the first three months under new CEO Greg Abel, according to a fresh SEC filing.

Abel, since coming to the helm, increased Berkshire's Alphabet holdings by 224% to nearly 58 million shares, valued at about $16.6 billion at the end of the first quarter. Berkshire more than tripled the amount of Google stock it owned. The investment is now worth around $23 billion.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is now Berkshire's seventh-largest stock investment. The tech giant's revenue grew 22% in the first quarter to nearly $110 billion. 

One of the biggest reasons for this growth is Google Cloud, Alphabet's cloud computing business. Cloud services help companies store data, run apps and use AI tools online. Google Cloud revenue jumped 63% to $20 billion in just one quarter.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said AI products are now the biggest growth driver for Google Cloud. Revenue from AI-related cloud products grew nearly 800% compared to last year. Revenue from Google Search and ads rose 19% to $60.4 billion, while YouTube ad revenue increased 11%.

At the same time, subscriptions for services like YouTube Premium, Google One and Gemini AI reached 350 million users. 

However, Alphabet is also spending huge amounts of money to stay ahead in artificial intelligence (AI). The company spent $35.7 billion in just one quarter on data centres, AI infrastructure and technology investments. It now expects to spend up to $190 billion this year, with even higher spending planned for 2027.

The filing also showed Berkshire sold or exited several well-known investments, including Visa, Mastercard, UnitedHealth Group, Amazon, Domino's Pizza, Aon and several smaller holdings. Berkshire also almost completely exited Constellation Brands.

One of the biggest reductions was in Chevron. Berkshire cut its Chevron stake by 35%, selling shares worth more than $8 billion. At the same time, the company added two new stocks, Delta Air Lines and Macy's, to its portfolio while also increasing stakes in four existing holdings.

Berkshire returned to airline stocks by buying nearly 40 million shares of Delta Air Lines worth around $2.8 billion and around 3 million Macy's shares.

Berkshire's own stock has fallen about 4% this year, while the broader US stock market has risen around 8%.