Berkshire makes Alphabet a top-three holding — a $37.9 billion bet on Google
Friday's Q2 13F shows Berkshire holding roughly 106 million Alphabet shares worth $37.9 billion at quarter-end — up 83% in three months, now behind only Apple and American Express.
Berkshire Hathaway's second-quarter 13F landed after Friday's close, and the headline is Google: roughly 106 million Alphabet shares — about 79 million Class A and more than 27 million Class C — worth $37.9 billion as of June 30. The position grew 83% in the quarter and now ranks as Berkshire's third-largest U.S.-listed equity holding, behind only Apple and American Express, at just over 9% of the reported portfolio.
The stake has been building fast. Berkshire first showed up in Alphabet last autumn with a position worth about $4.3 billion, tripled it in the first quarter — Greg Abel's first full quarter as chief executive — and grew it another 83% in the second. In under a year, Google has gone from a new name in the book to a pillar of it.
A large piece of the jump came in a single stroke: in early June, Berkshire bought roughly $10 billion of Alphabet stock in a private placement as the company raised fresh capital to fund its AI infrastructure buildout. That makes Berkshire not just a shareholder but a direct financier of Google's datacenter expansion.
The rest of the filing tells the same story of cash finally being put to work — Berkshire was a net buyer of roughly $20 billion of equities in the quarter. It added to Delta Air Lines, returned to the homebuilders with D.R. Horton, exited Constellation Brands entirely, and trimmed bank exposure.
The market has not had its say yet — the filing hit after the bell. Alphabet ended Friday little changed at $345.90, which values the reported stake near $36.7 billion at current prices; Berkshire's B shares slipped 0.6% to $504.03. Monday's open gets the first vote.
The read from the desk: the Buffett-era cash pile is moving, and it is moving toward compute. When the most famously patient balance sheet in America picks its biggest new conviction since Apple, the name being Google is the story. Follow GOOGL live in the Terminal.