Collin Brantmeyer, The Motley Fool

Sun, Jun 29, 2025, 5:55 AM7 min read

• Warren Buffett previously noted he regrets not investing in Amazon sooner.

• Apple is Berkshire's largest stock holding, worth over $60 billion.

• Apple recently announced a new $100 billion share buyback program.

• 10 stocks we like better than Amazon ›

Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B) has been managing investments for his company for roughly 60 years. For much of that time, he largely avoided trading in technology stocks, once stating:

Technology is based on change; and change is really the enemy of the investor. Change is more rapid and unpredictable in technology relative to the broader economy. To me, all technology sectors look like 7-foot hurdles.

But there are always exceptions to the rule, and Berkshire Hathaway started buying Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock in 2016 and invested in Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) beginning in 2019. These are two of the world's largest tech companies. Let's take a look at Buffett's seeming contradiction and maybe also determine whether these two blue chip stocks might fit into your portfolio.

Berkshire's stake in Amazon is a relatively small position in its nearly $285 billion stock portfolio (about 0.8%), valued at approximately $2.2 billion. It's likely that it was initially purchased in 2019 by one of Buffett's lieutenants. Nonetheless, Buffett has previously joked that he was "an idiot for not buying" the stock sooner.

Amazon's stock price has struggled of late, down about 1% so far in 2025 as it ramps up its capital expenditures to keep up in the artificial intelligence (AI) arms race. Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said capital expenditures could exceed $100 billion in 2025, driven by investments in data centers, chips, and AI infrastructure. That expense is up significantly from $48.1 billion in 2023 and $77.7 billion in 2024, reflecting the importance management puts on AI.

While the return on investment for AI may take a few years to materialize, Amazon continues to deliver results now. In Q1 2025, Amazon generated $155.7 billion in revenue, a 9% year-over-year increase. As for profitability, one metric Buffett prefers is operating earnings, a measure of a company's direct profits from its core operations that exclude volatile unrealized capital gains and losses resulting from its investments. Amazon delivered $18.4 billion in operating earnings for the quarter, representing year-over-year growth of 20.3%.

One area where Amazon's AI return on investment is already showing up is in its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division. Specifically, management projected a $117 billion annual revenue run rate for AWS in 2025, with its Q1 increasing 17% year over year to $29.3 billion. CEO Andy Jassy underscored the growth on the company's most recent earnings call, saying: "Before this generation of AI, we thought AWS had the chance to ultimately be a multi $100 billion revenue run rate business. We now think it could be even larger."