The world was informed by Warren Buffett that he was retiring. He gave Greg Abel the keys, gave him about $400 billion in cash, and essentially wished him luck. For most of 2025, Wall Street wondered if Berkshire Hathaway would ever be the same. After the Alphabet trade, it became abundantly evident that Buffett had not made any significant moves.
The narrative starts in the third quarter of 2025, when Berkshire discreetly revealed that it owned a portion of Alphabet. At first, nobody made a big deal out of it. It appeared to be a quarterly filing footnote. 17.8 million shares, or about $4.3 billion. It was intriguing, but not revolutionary, or so it appeared. By the time the first quarter of 2026 arrived, Berkshire had acquired an additional 40 million shares on the open market. The role was expanding and expanding quickly.
June then arrived. Through a private placement, Alphabet raised funds, and Berkshire directly contributed $10 billion, purchasing Class A and Class C shares at an average price of about $350. It’s the type of move that doesn’t go unnoticed. The question on every investor’s mind changed from “what will Abel do?” to “wait — was this Buffett?” as Alphabet quickly rose into Berkshire’s top five or six equity holdings.
Yes, it was. In a July 2026 interview with CNBC, Buffett stated unequivocally that he started the trade. For his part, Abel was in favor of it. Buffett claims that the two have regular conversations and appear to be on the same page. However, Buffett made it clear that he is no longer in charge of day-to-day operations. This was not an attempt to gain power. It resembled a mentor who still occasionally returns to the classroom to write something on the board.
Observing all of this, it seems as tho the Alphabet investment sheds light on what Berkshire is really betting on. The cost of artificial intelligence is high. Although Alphabet is investing heavily in AI infrastructure, not everyone is certain that the profits will outweigh the initial investment. Abel and Buffett appear to think they will. That’s a significant statement from a company that famously missed the early waves of both Google and Amazon and spent decades being dubious about technology stocks.
Additionally, Abel isn’t merely endorsing Buffett’s concepts. He’s already giving things his own form. He made the decision to acquire Taylor Morrison Home and mentioned integrating it with Berkshire’s current housing businesses, something that Buffett, who is renowned for being hands-off, probably wouldn’t have done. Because they are the result of two distinct ideas working together in a true partnership, the Alphabet bet and the Taylor Morrison deal can coexist within the same organization.
Here, it’s difficult to ignore the larger message. Buffett patiently built up Berkshire’s cash pile during years when stocks seemed overpriced, and now it’s finally moving. Greg Abel reversed three years of net selling by reintroducing almost $20 billion into the market in a single quarter. No one knows yet if that timing turns out to be brilliant or premature. However, the path is obvious. Additionally, there is a 95-year-old chairman in Omaha who seems to still have thoughts about Google.
