Move Over, Warren Buffett! Alphabet Might Be Wall Street&…
By Sean Williams – Apr 23, 2026 at 7:06AM EST
Key Points
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The retirement of Warren Buffett as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO means the crown for Wall Street’s top investor is up for grabs — and it may belong to Alphabet.
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Alphabet has shown it’s much more than just an advertising giant and burgeoning artificial intelligence (AI) company.
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Some of Alphabet’s investments should result in mammoth profit windfalls, including one that may total up to $121 billion in 2026.
Alphabet is much more than just ads and AI
When most investors think about Alphabet, internet search engine Google probably comes to mind. Google holds a virtual monopoly in internet search traffic, with an approximate 90% global as of March 2026.
It’s also the parent company of streaming platform YouTube, the second-most-visited social site on the planet behind (drum roll) Google. The billions of internet search queries and YouTube views it garners affords Alphabet substantial ad pricing power.
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NASDAQ: GOOGL
Alphabet
Today’s Change
(2.12%) $7.03
Current Price
$339.32
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$4.1T
Day’s Range
$335.17 – $339.82
52wk Range
$147.84 – $349.00
Volume
157K
Avg Vol
32M
Gross Margin
59.68%
Dividend Yield
0.25%
Investors view Alphabet as a key player in cloud infrastructure services and the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, too. Google Cloud is the world’s No. 3 cloud infrastructure service platform by total spend. The integration of generative AI solutions and large language model (LLM) capabilities into Google Cloud accelerated its sales growth to a scorching-hot 48% in the fourth quarter.
But Alphabet is also a magnificent investment company. Although not every public and private investment made by Alphabet has turned into a diamond, quite a few have been absolute gems.
Image source: Getty Images.
Alphabet’s investing prowess might be unmatched
The majority of Alphabet’s investments in the public and private arena are with companies it’s collaborating with. In other words, it’s a strategic investor whose portfolio can grow in lockstep with its own operations.
Arguably, the crown jewel of Alphabet’s investment portfolio is the roughly $900 million investment made in privately held SpaceX in 2015. SpaceX confidentially filed for an initial public offering on April 1 and is seeking a valuation of $1.75 trillion to $2 trillion. Based on a regulatory filing that listed Alphabet as having a 6.11% stake in SpaceX, as of the end of 2025, its position could be worth $107 billion to $122 billion. We’re talking about a $106 billion to $121 billion windfall and an increase of 19,400% to 22,200% from its initial investment over 11 years.
Alphabet’s investment team also put capital to work early in LLM giant, Anthropic. In October 2023, Google invested $2 billion in the developer of the Claude LLMs. In January 2025, Google agreed to an additional $1 billion investment in Anthropic.
Altogether, more than $3 billion has been invested in this AI start-up over the last three years, with Alphabet holding approximately a 14% stake in Anthropic. Recently, Anthropic has received venture capital offers valuing the business at $800 billion. This means Google’s initial investment of more than $3 billion may be worth $112 billion (a return of more than 3,000%!).
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NASDAQ: ASTS
AST SpaceMobile
Today’s Change
(5.81%) $4.65
Current Price
$84.66
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$25B
Day’s Range
$82.74 – $87.78
52wk Range
$22.07 – $129.89
Volume
253K
Avg Vol
15M
Gross Margin
-14399.31%
Alphabet’s public portfolio is no slouch, either. Its investment team purchased over 8.9 million s of satellite-based cellular broadband services provider AST SpaceMobile (ASTS +5.81%) in the March-ended quarter of 2025. Though we don’t know the exact cost basis of Alphabet’s position, AST SpaceMobile stock has skyrocketed from around $25 per in the first quarter of 2025 to a close of $85.53 on April 17 (a ly gain of well over 200%).
Suffice it to say, investors would be wise to pay close attention to which public and private companies Alphabet is putting its capital to work in.
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This Single Investment Gives Investors Exposure to SpaceX and Anthropic
About the Author
Sean Williams is a data-driven Motley Fool contributing analyst who’s been investing for 27 years and has penned north of 15,000 articles. You’ll find him at the intersection of politics and investing tackling macroeconomic topics of interest (Social Security and Donald Trump’s economic/tax policies), analyzing which stocks billionaire investors (e.g., Warren Buffett) are buying and selling, and digging into how the world’s most-influential businesses and trends — everything from the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) to the next stock split — are changing Wall Street. He holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego.
Stocks Mentioned
Alphabet
NASDAQ: GOOGL
$339.32
(+2.12%)+$7.03
Berkshire Hathaway
NYSE: BRKA
$702,980.00
(-0.10%)-$720.00
Berkshire Hathaway
NYSE: BRKB
$465.40
(-0.66%)-$3.10
Alphabet
NASDAQ: GOOG
$337.73
(+2.20%)+$7.26
AST SpaceMobile
NASDAQ: ASTS
$84.66
(+5.81%)+$4.65
*Average returns of all recommendations since inception. Cost basis and return based on previous market day close.
Sumber Artikel:
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