Berkshire's New CEO Abel Sold $8B Chevron, Boosted GOOGL: Q1 2026 13F Signals Shift

Berkshire Hathaway's newly installed CEO Greg Abel made sweeping portfolio changes in his first quarter overseeing the conglomerate, signaling a fundamental shift in investment thesis away from traditional energy plays and toward technology and artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company sold approximately $8 billion of Chevron shares as the oil giant's stock reached record highs, trimming Berkshire's largest energy holding. Simultaneously, Abel exited Berkshire's entire position in Amazon despite the e-commerce giant's historically strong fundamentals, and dramatically increased holdings in Alphabet (Google) to near-record levels.

The moves reflect Abel's assessment that the AI capex cycle represents the most durable secular opportunity available, and that energy upside is dependent on geopolitical risk rather than structural demand. The Chevron sale was executed at cyclical highs driven by Iran supply disruptions, allowing Abel to lock in gains and redeploy capital. The Amazon exit is more puzzling to some analysts, as the company has been a Berkshire darling for years, but insiders noted that Abel may view AWS margins as already pricing in peak AI infrastructure spending or that he prefers Alphabet's diversified moatA sustainable competitive advantage that protects long-term returns on capital. across search, cloud, and advertising.

Alphabet's boost puts Google among Berkshire's largest holdings at roughly 7 pct of the portfolio at quarter-end, signaling that Abel views the tech giant as a core long-term compounding machine. The portfolio shift is consistent with trends observed among other mega-wealth managers: David Tepper's Appaloosa doubled its Amazon stake but also made significant tech purchases, while Seth Klarman's Baupost made Amazon its top holding. However, Berkshire's moves carryIncome earned from holding a position over time. more outsized weight due to the firm's $1+ trillion asset base and its status as a trailing indicator of institutional sentiment.

The shift has raised questions about whether Berkshire's traditional value discipline is being abandoned in favor of momentumThe empirical fact that winners keep winning over the medium term.-chasing in mega-cap tech. Some critics note that Berkshire is now heavily concentrated in exactly the stocks that have driven S&P 500 concentration to record levels, creating correlation risk if the AI narrative falters. However, supporters counter that Abel's moves are tactical rebalancing within a value context: selling Chevron at cyclical highs and rotating into a diversified mega-cap that benefits from multiple structural trends (AI, advertising, cloud).