Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway just confessed its love for Alphabet with a $4.93 billion stake, sending the tech giant’s shares soaring 5.2% on Monday like a rocket fueled by delayed regret.
This rare tech tango comes as AI barons burn cash faster than a toddler with a matches collection, splurging billions on data centers and chips that promise to outsmart us all—or at least pretend to.
Berkshire’s filing, dropped like a mic on Friday, revealed 17.85 million shares owned as of September 30. At Friday’s close, that’s enough green to buy a small country’s worth of search queries, or perhaps just one very fancy oracle hat for Buffett.
Buffett, the folksy king of value investing who’s dodged tech like a vampire at a garlic festival, is bowing out as CEO at year’s end after six decades of turning sow’s ears into silk purses. His heir apparent, Greg Abel, inherits the throne, but whispers suggest Warren himself might have greenlit this Google glow-up.
Remember 2019’s Berkshire bash, where Buffett and the late Charlie Munger owned up to missing Google’s boat? “We screwed up,” Munger grumbled, probably while eyeing a crystal ball that showed zero Alphabet in their portfolio.
Fast-forward to now, and Berkshire’s playing catch-up with a stake that’s cheaper than a laundromat on laundry day—Alphabet trades at a modest 25 times earnings, versus Nvidia’s 30-fold frenzy or Microsoft’s near-30 splash. It’s like showing up to the AI party fashionably late, in khakis.
Yet Berkshire’s not all-in on the digital dazzle; they’ve trimmed their Apple orchard from a juicy $64.9 billion behemoth, insisting the iPhone empire is more fruit stand than firewall. Meanwhile, Bank of America’s shares got the polite “it’s not you, it’s us” trim, part of a year-long slim-down that’s left investors eyeing Berkshire’s record cash pile like a dragon’s suspiciously full lair.
That hoard, ballooning to unprecedented heights, has Wall Street scratching heads—does it signal Buffett smells overripe valuations, or is he just stocking up for the apocalypse bingo? The Alphabet buy hints at the latter: selective swipes at resilient giants amid economic tea leaves that read more “stormy” than “sunny.”
Alphabet’s stock, up 46% this year, has outpaced the S&P 500 like a caffeinated hare in a tortoise race. Berkshire’s portfolio, though, stays stubbornly rooted in financials—36.6% as of September, per Morningstar—proving even oracles know when to stick to their knitting, or at least hedge it with a smart search engine.
As Buffett’s sunset nears, this move feels like a cheeky footnote to his legacy: the man who built an empire on burgers and insurance now tips his hat to the cloud kings. Investors wonder if it’s endorsement or just Warren finally updating his browser—either way, the market’s chuckling all the way to the bank.
In quieter corners, Berkshire watchers ponder the decider: Was it Buffett’s gut, or the dynamic duo of portfolio whiz kids Todd Combs and Ted Weschler? Or perhaps Abel, already warming up his crystal ball? One thing’s clear—sixty years in, the Oracle of Omaha’s still got a few surprises up his sleeve, and they’re googly-eyed.
The AI spending spree, meanwhile, rolls on like an unchecked grocery cart down a data-center aisle, prompting pullbacks that make tech titans look like kids caught with cookie crumbs. Berkshire’s bet whispers resilience over recklessness, a value investor’s velvet glove in the AI iron fist.
As shares settle from Monday’s merry-go-round, one can’t help but grin at the spectacle: a cash-hoarding colossus dipping a toe into tech’s whirlpool, just in time for the boss to hang up his spurs. It’s a reminder that even in markets as predictable as a weather forecast in Omaha, the best investments come with a side of “what were we thinking?”
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