Greg Abel’s first major spending flurry at Berkshire follows $16.8B in fresh deals

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) moved quickly in early June, combining a major cash acquisition in U.S. housing with a large equity bet tied to Alphabet’s artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout. A market recap published this week said the actions total $16.8 billion over a span of just a few days, framing the moves as a step change under CEO Greg Abel, who took over after Warren Buffett.

On May 31, Berkshire and Taylor Morrison Home Corporation (TMHC) jointly announced a definitive agreement for Berkshire to acquire Taylor Morrison for $72.50 per common share in cash. The deal values Taylor Morrison at about $6.8 billion in equity and about $8.5 billion in total enterprise value, with the offer price representing a 24% premium to Taylor Morrison’s May 29 closing price. The parties described plans to “unify” on-site homebuilding operations over time after the transaction closes, subject to standard deal conditions.

The second leg of the flurry came the next day. Alphabet said it would raise up to $80 billion in equity offerings to fund investments in AI compute infrastructure, and it also disclosed a private placement under which Berkshire agreed to invest $10 billion. In the private placement, Berkshire would buy $5 billion of Class A common stock and $5 billion of Class C capital stock at specified prices. Alphabet said proceeds are intended for general corporate purposes, including capital expenditures aimed at scaling AI infrastructure and global compute.

Taken together, the two announcements produced the $16.8 billion headline figure cited by market coverage, drawing attention to the fact that Berkshire has long been known for building up liquidity. Reuters reporting said the investments arrived after investors had been waiting for Abel to put more of Berkshire’s cash to work, adding that the moves may represent a shift versus what many shareholders had grown accustomed to under Buffett.

Berkshire’s ability to write large checks rests on the balance between its vast operating cash needs and its investment liquidity. Reporting around Berkshire’s first-quarter results has described cash and short-term Treasury holdings approaching roughly $400 billion around late March, even as the company continued buying and selling parts of its equity portfolio.

The announced deals also underscore the range of Berkshire’s appetite. The Taylor Morrison transaction targets a cyclical, asset-heavy industry tied to U.S. homebuilding demand, while the Alphabet investment is linked to spending on AI infrastructure, where Alphabet’s capex plans are intended to meet growing customer demand for compute capacity.

Still, several practical details are not resolved by the announcements alone. Berkshire did not provide, in the market recap, any additional roadmap for how much more cash it intends to deploy in the remainder of 2026, nor did the disclosures spell out a timeline for integrating Taylor Morrison beyond completion being subject to required approvals. Alphabet’s filings also describe the use of proceeds at a high level, but they do not break out exactly how much of Berkshire’s $10 billion investment translates into specific AI infrastructure projects.

For investors watching BRK.B, the next markers are straightforward: whether regulators and shareholders clear the Taylor Morrison transaction and when it closes, and how Alphabet’s broader equity raise proceeds (including the planned additional financing components) translate into continued capex and AI infrastructure expansion. The bigger question is whether Abel sustains this check-writing pace beyond the first high-profile deals, or returns to a more measured cadence as capital allocation decisions compete with market valuation and risk appetite.