Biography Flash: Buffett's Alphabet Bet and His Final Investing Power Move

Warren Buffett Biography Flash a weekly Biography. Warren Buffett may have stepped down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of 2025, but in the past few days he has looked anything but retired. According to Finance Yahoo, Buffett told CNBC in a recent interview that he personally “initiated” Berkshire’s massive Alphabet bet, confirming that at 96 he is still calling key shots on the conglomerate’s $360 billion stock portfolio from his role as chairman of the board. Finance Yahoo and The Motley Fool report that Berkshire now owns roughly 106 million Alphabet shares worth about 37 to 38 billion dollars, making the Google parent one of Berkshire’s largest holdings and a defining late‑career move for Buffett’s biography. Recent coverage in The Motley Fool and South Korean outlet Sedaily has framed this as possibly Buffett’s final signature investment: the man who famously passed on Google two decades ago has now turned Alphabet into Berkshire’s third‑largest position, behind Apple and American Express, a pivot that will loom large in any future account of his life as an investor. Commentators note that while Greg Abel formally took over as CEO in 2026 and has aggressively embraced artificial intelligence themes, Berkshire’s increased Alphabet stake was authorized jointly by Abel and Buffett, underscoring that the Oracle of Omaha remains deeply involved in strategy even after relinquishing the CEO title. Another key development in the last few days is Berkshire’s renewed appetite for buybacks. Finance Yahoo reports that under Greg Abel, Berkshire repurchased about 4.5 billion dollars of its own stock in the second quarter, after market watchers had speculated it might be as high as 11 billion. Importantly, the decision to buy back shares is still made in consultation with Buffett, meaning his long‑standing view that Berkshire should only repurchase when shares are clearly undervalued continues to shape capital allocation and, by extension, his legacy. On the portfolio front beyond Alphabet, Finance Yahoo notes that Berkshire has quietly built a roughly 1.1 billion dollar stake in The New York Times, now approaching 10 percent of the company’s outstanding shares, a fresh twist in Buffett’s long‑standing fascination with media businesses. The Motley Fool also highlights Berkshire’s completed acquisition of homebuilder Taylor Morrison and the OxyChem unit from Occidental Petroleum, moves that reflect a Buffett‑Abel partnership still hunting for whole‑company deals even as they complain publicly about a lack of bargains. As for public appearances and social media chatter in just the past 24 hours, coverage has largely recycled that CNBC interview line about “I initiated it” and the narrative of Alphabet as Buffett’s late‑life tech conversion. There are speculative pieces predicting further big acquisitions by Berkshire before the end of 2026, but those remain opinions rather than confirmed plans and should be treated as informed guesswork, not biographical fact. That’s all for this Warren Buffett Biography Flash. Thank you for listening, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an update on Warren Buffett, and search the term Biography Flash for more great biographies. Thanks for listening. This has been a Quiet Please production. Get the best deals https://amzn.to/3ODvOta