For a man who has spent a decade treating Job’s Mob like a reliable dividend-dispensing tractor, this move feels like someone switching religion after breakfast.
The Alphabet position has already become Berkshire’s tenth-largest holding, which is a charming way of saying the 95-year-old investor is willing to bet on Google’s revival rather than Apple’s complacency. His usual strategy involves steady value plays, not punting on high growth outfits that spend half their time arguing with regulators and the other half breaking AI demos on stage.
Buffett offloaded around $11 billion of Apple stock in the third quarter, which extends the downsizing of a trade he once described as one of his best. Berkshire unloaded about 42 million shares between June and September, leaving roughly 61 billion dollars parked in the orchard. Job’s Mob is still Berkshire’s biggest position, but the direction of travel suggests the shine is wearing thin.
Remember that Buffett already dumped more than two-thirds of his Apple stake between 2023 and 2024 to lock in profits. This year’s trimming looks like another round of strategic distancing, not a minor haircut. The man is retiring as chief executive at the end of the year.
He appears to be tidying his portfolio so his successors are not stuck babysitting a company whose AI efforts are starting to look like a school project next to Silicon Valley rivals.
Berkshire’s other large holdings remain stubbornly old school with no Big Tech names besides Job’s Mob and Alphabet. Positions at American Express, Bank of America, and Coca-Cola barely budged, highlighting how deliberate this shift toward Google really is.
The conglomerate remained a net seller for the third consecutive year, offloading more than six billion dollars in equities during the quarter and racking up about $184 billion in sales over three years. When a man known for patience starts unloading stock like this, something is moving.
Buffett’s new admiration for Alphabet reflects Google’s surprising rebound in the AI arms race. The company went from stumbling around after ChatGPT’s debut in 2022 to shipping improved models and keeping its search cash machine intact. Alphabet’s latest revenues hit a record $100 billion last quarter, which thrilled the cocaine-nosed jobs of Wall Street.
Job’s Mob cannot say the same. Apple’s shares have crawled up about twelve per cent this year, while Alphabet has soared 45 per cent and even outpaced Nvidia. When your biggest and most famous backer starts favouring Google over your kit, it is a stark reminder that the orchard’s magic is wearing thin at a time when it can least afford it.