Greg Abel, Berkshire Hathaway's CEO since Warren Buffett's Dec. 31 retirement, sold the firm's Amazon stake in the first quarter while growing its Alphabet position from $5.59 billion to $36.37 billion. The moves follow Todd Combs' December departure for JPMorgan Chase and track Alphabet's accelerating cloud and AI-linked growth.
Amazon sold despite AWS growth
Greg Abel, who became Berkshire Hathaway's CEO after Warren Buffett's Dec. 31 retirement, moved quickly to reshape the firm's $358 billion investment portfolio. In the first quarter he reduced six holdings and eliminated 16 others entirely, including Amazon, one of Berkshire's longest-held positions.
The sale came even as Amazon's cloud business kept accelerating. AWS's year-over-year sales growth surged to 37% in the June-ended quarter. Amazon's marketplace also accounted for more than 40% of U.S. online retail sales last year, more than quadrupling second-place Walmart.
One possible explanation is profit-taking: Amazon shares had advanced roughly 150% to 200% since Berkshire's initial purchase in the first quarter of 2019. However, the more likely driver is personnel: Todd Combs, who had overseen many of Berkshire's non-core holdings, left in December for JPMorgan Chase, and the positions Abel cut in the first quarter were predominantly the ones Combs had managed.
Alphabet stake has grown by 550%
While Abel pared back Amazon, he built aggressively into Alphabet. Berkshire's stake in the Google parent grew from $5.59 billion to $36.37 billion between Dec. 31 and Sept. 25, a gain of 550%. Google holds a greater-than-91% share of global internet search as of August. YouTube, meanwhile, ranks as the second-most-visited social platform, and together the two give Alphabet's ad platforms top-tier pricing power.
Alphabet's underlying growth has also been accelerating. In its second quarter of fiscal 2026, the company reported revenue up 24% year over year to $119.8 billion, beating estimates by $2.8 billion, while operating margin expanded two percentage points to 34%. Google Cloud revenue jumped 82% year over year to $24.8 billion, with operating margin up 15 percentage points to 36%. YouTube ad revenue also rose 13% to $11.1 billion.
A cash pile behind the AI push
Alphabet also holds stakes in SpaceX and Anthropic, investments tied to the artificial intelligence ambitions that have kept Abel adding to a Berkshire position now grown by 550% since Buffett's retirement.
Source: The Motley Fool
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