Greg Abel, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, speaks during the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, NE on May 2, 2026.
CNBC
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel discussed with CNBC’s Becky Quick on Wednesday the conglomerate’s massive investment in Google-parent Alphabet, calling the tech giant a “significant player” in artificial intelligence.
Abel said that Berkshire has clear view of the impacts that AI is having across its portfolio of companies and that Google’s position relative to the emerging technology is strong.
“We have a lot of visibility from within our companies as to how we’re using AI, what type of benefits it’s delivering, so that brought incremental interest, and then we saw Google as a significant player,” he told Quick.
Berkshire took a $10 billion stake in Google 15 months ago at a 6.5% discount, Abel said.
“They hadn’t set the size, but recommended that we consider 10 billion. And Warren and I discussed the size. We discussed the size of discount, and I’d recommended six-and-a-half percent discount, and we were comfortable with that,” Abel said. “Then ultimately consummated the transaction.”
Berkshire added a total of $17 billion of Alphabet shares in the second quarter, making it the third largest holding in Berkshire Hathaway’s equity portfolio, according to the company’s Q2 portfolio snapshot filed with the SEC in August.
As of the company’s last filing, Berkshire owns around 106 million of Alphabet’s Class A and Class C shares, currently worth around $36.6 billion.