Everyone expected some changes at Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA) (BRKB +0.36%) when Greg Abel took over as CEO in January. But one of his more surprising moves has been his aggressive investment in Alphabet (GOOGL +6.73%) (GOOG +6.88%).
Berkshire didn’t start investing in Alphabet until the third quarter of 2025, but it now owns over $23 billion in Class A GOOGL shares and another $6 billion in Class C GOOG shares.
While Berkshire tends to let its investments speak for themselves rather than add commentary for each decision, there are three likely reasons why it’s been loading up on shares.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
1. A new CEO
Berkshire opened a position in Alphabet in the third quarter of 2025, purchasing roughly 18 million shares. While Warren Buffett was still CEO and had indicated he initiated Berkshire’s Alphabet ownership, Abel still likely had an influence on the decision based on what was to follow. In the first quarter of 2026, Berkshire purchased 40 million more shares.
Then, in June, as part of an $80 billion stock sale to fund artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure investments, Alphabet sold $10 billion of stock to Berkshire Hathaway in a private placement. Of that $10 billion, Berkshire purchased $5 billion in GOOGL shares at $351.81 per share and $5 billion in GOOG shares at $348.20 per share.
Today’s Change
(0.36%) $1.86
Current Price
$511.54
Key Data Points
Market Cap
Day’s Range
$506.70 – $513.03
52wk Range
$455.19 – $516.85
Volume
3.9M
Avg Vol
5M
Gross Margin
23.70%
2. Leadership in AI
Berkshire’s investment in Alphabet is also a sign of confidence, not only in AI but also in Alphabet’s leadership. As of the first quarter of 2026, Alphabet ranked third (with a 14% market share) in the global cloud infrastructure market, which companies can use to build AI applications and AI agents.
It’s also in the chip business, building them for internal and external use. Both Apple and Anthropic use or have used Alphabet-designed chips, and there was also excitement around Alphabet’s work on a new server chip, Frozen v2, to run its own Gemini AI models more efficiently.
Today’s Change
(6.73%) $22.47
Current Price
$356.13
Key Data Points
Market Cap
Day’s Range
$340.00 – $358.58
52wk Range
$190.12 – $408.61
Volume
46.5M
Avg Vol
32.5M
Gross Margin
60.94%
Dividend Yield
0.24%
3. Valuation
Even with Abel at the helm, Berkshire is still all about finding overlooked value. That sounds odd when discussing a $4.1 trillion company, but Berkshire still sees a profitable opportunity.
The disconnect between the rest of the market and what Berkshire may see is around capital expenditures. There’s still uncertainty about how the AI story will play out, and some investors worry that the return on all the infrastructure being built to support it won’t justify the investment. For 2026, Alphabet plans to spend between $195 billion and $205 billion.
With Berkshire investing more, however, Abel shows the degree of confidence he has that his investment today will be worth more down the road.
Jack Delaney has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Apple, and Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
