Key points

  • Berkshire Hathaway's Alphabet (GOOGL) position is worth about $28.2 billion, or 9.4% of its disclosed U.S. equity portfolio — the fourth-largest holding in a book of 29 positions, behind only Apple, American Express and Coca-Cola.
  • Bill Ackman's Pershing Square no longer discloses an Alphabet position at all. Its latest filing lists 11 holdings, led by Brookfield, Amazon and Uber, with Microsoft at about $2.1 billion. Yahoo Finance reported the fund moved out of Alphabet and into Microsoft.
  • Alphabet's own insiders have not bought a share on the open market. Across 38 recent Form 4 filings reviewed by InsiderBuying.com, there is not one open-market purchase — the only open-market transaction is a small sale on August 28.

Two of the most-watched investors in the market now sit on opposite sides of the same megacap, and the people who run the company are on neither side.

What the filings show

Berkshire's Alphabet stake is the story of the quarter in its portfolio. At roughly $28.2 billion it now sits ahead of Bank of America, a position Berkshire has held and trimmed for a decade. Alphabet is no longer a starter position for Berkshire; it is a top-four commitment.

Pershing Square's book tells the opposite story. Eleven positions, no Alphabet, and Microsoft at 15.3% of the portfolio. Ackman has always run concentrated — the absence is a decision, not a rounding error. Yahoo Finance reported the fund rotated out of Alphabet and into Microsoft.

The part most coverage misses

Institutional filings tell you what outside money did last quarter. Form 4 filings tell you what the people inside the company are doing with their own money, and they are filed within two business days rather than 45.

On that measure Alphabet is quiet. Executives and directors receive stock and they sell stock; across the filings on record none of them has made an open-market purchase with their own money. That is ordinary for a company of this size — mega-cap insiders are usually paid in equity and are net sellers by construction — but it does mean the conviction here is entirely external.

The bottom line

Berkshire has built a top-four position in Alphabet. Pershing Square has none. Alphabet's own insiders have bought nothing on the open market. Anyone treating the Berkshire stake as an insider signal should be clear that it is a 13F signal — a quarterly snapshot of an outside manager — and not the kind of same-week, own-money purchase that Form 4 captures.

You can audit all of it yourself: the full filing history sits on Alphabet's company page, and the scored insider view is part of Insider Access.