Greg Abel sold all of Berkshire Hathaway's 2.3 million Amazon shares in his first quarter as CEO, wiping out a position that had sat at less than 1% of the portfolio for most of the time Berkshire held it. The move came as Berkshire was reshuffling a slice of its stock book, closing out 16 of its smallest positions and also finishing a $6.8 billion acquisition of Taylor Morrison for.
That is why the sale is drawing attention now. Abel's first quarter in charge is already being read as a window into how Berkshire Hathaway may move without Warren Buffett at the wheel, and the Amazon exit is one of the clearest early signals. Berkshire bought Amazon stock in 2019, after one of its investing managers eventually made the call, and Buffett later said, in effect, that he had been too dumb to see what was coming.
The sale would look different if Amazon were struggling. It was not. In the second quarter, revenue rose 20% from a year earlier, AWS sales climbed 37%, and operating income jumped 63%. AWS reached a $169 billion run rate, and Amazon's AI chip business was running at $25 billion. The stock jumped 26% after the report and was up 43% from the middle of the first quarter, which makes Berkshire's exit look less like a retreat from weakness than a departure from momentum.
That is the friction in the story. Berkshire Hathaway sold a name tied to AWS and AI demand just as those lines were strengthening, even as Andy Jassy said AWS alone will eventually become a $1 trillion business and called it a business with very appealing accompanying free cash flow and return on invested capital. Berkshire has about 200 subsidiaries and is still adding and buying as the leadership transition unfolds, but the Amazon sale shows Abel is not simply preserving Buffett's portfolio choices.
What comes next is the sharper question. Berkshire has already shown under Abel that it can buy seven stocks in a first quarter and also clear out old positions, but the Amazon trade makes clear that the new CEO is willing to walk away from even a fast-growing business when he decides the capital belongs elsewhere.
For readers tracking Berkshire Hathaway buys seven stocks in first quarter under Greg Abel and Greg Abel Berkshire Portfolio Changes draw focus as succession nears, the message is the same: this is not a handoff that preserves every old bet. Abel is setting his own course, and Amazon was one of the first names to go.
