Berkshire's New Chief Dumps Chevron, Bets Big on Alphabet

Greg Abel's first six months as Berkshire Hathaway CEO mark a decisive break from the portfolio's energy tilt. Chevron, a continuous holding for nearly six years, has been trimmed aggressively—35% in Q1 alone—at a moment when crude oil prices surged on geopolitical disruption (Iran war and Strait of Hormuz closure). Rather than holding for further upside, Abel recognized that energy supply shocks are historically fleeting and that Chevron's valuation (forward P/E approaching 18 by end of Q1) no longer offered the margin of safety Buffett's playbook demands. The timing of the sale—locking in triple-digit percentage returns since 2020—reflects disciplined profit-taking, not panic.

Simultaneously, Abel has constructed a large, multi-tranche Alphabet position, committing more than $10 billion across the open market and a $10 billion private placement in Alphabet's June equity offering. This concentration signals conviction in a specific thesis: Alphabet's dominance in search (91% of internet traffic), combined with YouTube's reach and Google Cloud's accelerating AI-driven margin expansion, creates a durable competitive moat that can sustain outsized returns. The private placement structure—$10 billion into an $84.75 billion offering—underscores Berkshire's confidence in Alphabet's medium-term trajectory. By end of July, Alphabet had become Berkshire's No. 5 holding at nearly $30.8 billion, a striking reweighting for a company that Berkshire had historically underweighted relative to its peers.