Whether due to his outspokenness on a range of topics on the social media platform X or the strong returns from his company, Pershing Square Holdings, much of the market is always curious about what stocks billionaire investor Bill Ackman is buying and selling. It’s arguably more intriguing because Pershing Square Capital Management, the investment manager of Pershing, holds only 10 to 12 stocks at any one time.
In recent years, like many other investors, Ackman and his team have gotten more interested in artificial intelligence (AI) stocks and invested when they believed the stocks traded at compelling valuations. Nearly 40% of Ackman’s hedge fund is invested in these three AI stocks.
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Pershing has invested over 14% of its capital in Alphabet(NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL), largely through class C shares, with some ownership of class A. Alphabet is not a new investment, and it’s a stock that has worked out extraordinarily well for Pershing.
Alphabet benefited in several ways in 2025. The company received a favorable ruling in a major antitrust lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ alleged that Google acted as a monopoly, using unfair practices in its digital advertising and search businesses that made competition nearly impossible. A federal judge ultimately agreed with the DOJ but stopped short of imposing punishments that might have seriously impacted Alphabet’s revenue.
Furthermore, Alphabet was able to convince investors that its Gemini AI models were just as effective as the new chatbots emerging. Google’s AI overviews proved successful in maintaining Google’s dominant market share in traditional search and have also increased query activity. Gemini has also been deployed throughout Alphabet’s different products and businesses, and Pershing believes Alphabet has a cost advantage in its technical infrastructure.
The company makes its own custom chips, called tensor processing units (TPUs), making the company less reliant on third parties like Nvidia, which have significant pricing power. Alphabet has been on a terrific run. The question is, where will the stock go from here? The stock now trades at over 28 times forward earnings, above its five-year average.
If the company continues to execute on AI and grow its other businesses, such as YouTube and Waymo, there could be more upside ahead. It’s just not the same easy value play within the “Magnificent Seven” that the stock once was early last year.
Pershing scooped up Amazon(NASDAQ: AMZN) last year and made it clear they believed they were buying the stock at a compelling valuation. Amazon continues to trade at a historically low valuation compared to recent years.
In a recent presentation to investors, Pershing said it believes Amazon operates “two of the world’s great, category-defining franchises.” The company is, of course, referring to the retail e-commerce business that annually delivers $700 billion in gross merchandise value, and Amazon Web Services, which it believes is the leading cloud hyperscaler in a highly concentrated market.
While some investors have cast doubt on Amazon’s plan to spend $200 billion on capital expenditures in 2026, largely on data centers and other AI-related infrastructure, Pershing believes the company has been constrained by capacity. Pershing also sees a significant opportunity to double profitability in the retail business.
The company has faced challenges, whether due to high tariffs or from concerns about its AI strategy, so Amazon will have a big opportunity to prove itself over the coming few years.
In Q4 2025, Pershing took a new stake in Meta Platforms(NASDAQ: META), amounting to $1.8 billion at the end of 2025. Pershing, in its annual presentation, said Meta “represents a deeply discounted valuation for one of the world’s greatest businesses.”
The common pitch for Meta is that while other hyperscalers claim that all of their investments in AI will pay off, the payoff is more evident in Meta’s digital advertising model. Meta is using AI to help with ad content and campaign creation, and to serve users with ads that are more relevant to them, thereby increasing engagement and making Meta more desirable to advertisers. Meta experienced 22% revenue growth in 2025.
Meta plans to spend between $115 billion and $135 billion on AI-related capital expenditures (capex) in 2026. Pershing views the company as well positioned to accelerate its earnings trajectory following this planned spending. The fund also sees the risk of excess investment in this infrastructure somewhat offset by the core ad business’s ability to expand and absorb excess capacity.
Trading at 21 times forward earnings is not that demanding of a valuation as far as the world of AI goes. But like all of these hyperscalers committing to so much capex, investors will want to see proof that the returns will be compelling.
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Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
