Holding $397.4 billion! In the post-Buffett era, Abel awaits his "Apple" moment.

The Buffett era has ended, and Berkshire Hathaway has officially entered the Abel era.

On May 2nd, the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders' meeting was held as scheduled, with the spotlight shifting from Buffett to Abel. The curtain call of a legendary figure is an inevitable part of corporate development and also the best affirmation of Buffett's past glorious achievements.

At the shareholders' meeting, Abel emphasized that he will fully inherit Buffett's investment philosophy and adhere to Berkshire's five cornerstones: a safety cushion of cash and U.S. Treasuries, financial independence, flexible allocation, tax efficiency, and avoiding arrogance, bureaucracy, and complacency (ABC).

Therefore, in the long run, Abel will continue the investment style of the Buffett era.

According to Berkshire's unaudited financial report for the first quarter of 2026, Berkshire still maintains an "absolute defense" posture.

The financial report shows that, benefiting from the overall strengthening of core physical businesses such as insurance, railroads, energy, and manufacturing, coupled with a significant narrowing of investment losses, the company's total revenue for the first quarter was $93.675 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4.4%; net profit attributable to shareholders was $10.106 billion, a year-on-year surge of 119.6%, compared to $4.603 billion in the same period last year; benefiting from business structure optimization and cost control, the company's operating profit performance was stable, with quarterly operating profit at $11.35 billion.

In terms of investments, in the first quarter, Berkshire's fair value of equity securities investments was $288.034 billion. Its top five holdings were Apple, American Express, Bank of America, The Coca-Cola Company, and Chevron. Berkshire stated that as of the end of March, these five holdings accounted for 61% of the total fair value of its equity securities investment portfolio.

In terms of holdings, as of the end of the first quarter, Apple remained Berkshire's largest holding, although its holding proportion had decreased to 22.6%; the second-largest holding was American Express, accounting for approximately 20.46% of its holding value. It is worth noting that Berkshire slightly reduced its Apple holdings in the first quarter.

At the shareholders' meeting, Buffett recalled that about ten years ago, Berkshire committed to transferring 10% of half its resources and ultimately "spent about $35 billion buying Apple stock."

Buffett said: "That $35 billion, including dividends, realized appreciation, and unrealized appreciation, has become $185 billion. And I did nothing."

He added: "We basically handed the money over to Apple's management to make Berkshire's performance look better, and we didn't have to do any work ourselves. That's our favorite way of operating."

In terms of cash reserves, as of the end of the first quarter, Berkshire's cash reserves reached a record high of $397.4 billion, surpassing the previous high of $381.6 billion set in the third quarter of last year.

Abel explained that the total cash reserves included $17.2 billion in payables generated from purchasing U.S. Treasuries before the quarter-end. After deducting this, Berkshire's net cash and U.S. Treasuries were approximately $380 billion, an increase of about $7 billion from the end of 2025.

Facing the global AI boom, Abel made a clear statement: "We won't do AI for AI's sake." AI must create substantial value for the business. Regarding the energy and data center sectors, Abel believes that computing power projects must fully bear their own electricity costs. Addressing the impact of data centers on the power grid in the AI era, Abel proposed a clear principle: supercomputing centers and data centers must fully bear energy costs and cannot pass them on to ordinary users. He also revealed that the electricity load of data centers in its utility regions has reached a peak of 8%, and it is expected to increase by another 50% in the next five years, presenting a window of structural growth for the energy business.

In fact, judging from cash reserves, Berkshire's defensive posture is already at its maximum. Looking at the current development process of the AI industry, the stock prices of the "Magnificent Seven" in the U.S. stock market continue to hit new highs, and Berkshire and Buffett are unlikely to find suitable investment opportunities in the short term; and judging from last year's investment layout, its investment process in Google may also be affected by rising stock prices and a slowing market.

Kan Jian Finance believes that for companies like Berkshire, if the U.S. stock market does not experience a significant correction, it is unlikely to make large bets. Therefore, investors who want to copy Berkshire's investment homework may lose direction in the short term.

In the long run, Berkshire's massive cash reserves are a deep moat. After all, as the capital expenditures of the U.S. tech giants continue to rise, they will eventually face the insurmountable wall of energy, at which point energy will become a key factor constraining AI development.

Overall, if the capital expenditures of the U.S. tech giants begin to slow down and their investment in areas like AI computing power decreases, the impact on AI-related companies will be huge. Therefore, we believe that in the future, U.S. tech giants will increase their investment in green energy to solve the huge power consumption problem. When capital expansion slows and market enthusiasm for AI subsides, perhaps Berkshire will have the opportunity for large-scale investment in tech giants.