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

Warren Buffett retired as Berkshire Hathaway's CEO on December 31, 2025, after more than five decades at the helm, handing his $355 billion investment portfolio to Greg Abel, a longtime protégé who had been grooming for this role. For the first time in over half a century, Berkshire operates under new leadership.

Abel moved swiftly to reshape the portfolio. In the first quarter, he sent 16 stocks to the chopping block entirely and reduced six other positions. The most dramatic action was a 35% cut to Berkshire's Chevron stake, dumping 45,780,506 shares—the largest single-quarter reduction since Buffett first opened the position in 2020. Between the start of 2026 and the end of Q1, Chevron's stock had rallied from $152 to $207, delivering substantial gains. Buffett's original 2020 purchase had generated triple-digit percentage returns by the time Abel began selling. While simple profit-taking explains some of the reduction, Abel's timing suggests a deeper calculation: energy markets had been buoyed by surging crude oil prices driven by the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Historically, such geopolitical supply disruptions are short-lived. Beyond timing, Chevron's valuation had deteriorated from Abel's perspective. After finishing 2023 and 2024 at forward price-to-earnings ratios of 11 and 10, respectively, Chevron's forward P/E had climbed to nearly 18 by the end of Q1. Abel is known as a stickler for value investing, and at those multiples, Chevron no longer offered the price-to-worth margin he favors.

While Abel trimmed energy exposure, he was simultaneously doubling down on technology, particularly Alphabet. In the March-ended first quarter, he purchased 36,403,656 shares of Alphabet's Class A shares and opened a new position in Class C shares by buying 3,585,215 shares. These acquisitions more than tripled Berkshire's existing stake in Google's parent company. Abel's conviction deepened further when Alphabet announced a $84.75 billion equity offering on June 1. Berkshire committed $10 billion to a private placement as part of that offering, purchasing $5 billion each of Class A and Class C shares. By the end of July, Alphabet had become Berkshire's No. 5 holding, valued at nearly $30.8 billion.

Abel's thesis rests on Alphabet's structural advantages. Google's search engine commanded over 91% of internet search traffic as of July, paired with YouTube, the second-most-visited social platform globally. Together, these properties create what the investment community calls a "moat"—a sustainable competitive advantage that translates into exceptional pricing power for advertisers. Beyond search and video, Alphabet's artificial intelligence ambitions represent a growth vector. Since Alphabet integrated generative AI solutions and large language model capabilities into Google Cloud, the world's No. 3 cloud infrastructure platform by total spending, sales growth for this high-margin segment has accelerated sharply. For Abel, Alphabet appears to occupy the same strategic role in his portfolio that Apple held in Buffett's—a business with durable competitive advantages, exceptional free cash flow generation, and the potential for significant multiple expansion.