Berkshire Hathaway Returns to Delta and Exits Visa, Mastercard

Berkshire Hathaway is back in airline stocks, using its latest U.S. equity filing to reveal a $2.65 billion position in Delta Air Lines while also reshaping several other major bets under chief executive Greg Abel. The 13F filing, submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on May 15 for holdings as of March 31, showed a broad first-quarter rebalance rather than a single tactical trade.

The same filing and related Reuters reporting showed Berkshire more than tripled its Alphabet stake to roughly $16.6 billion, more than doubled its New York Times holding, and fully exited positions including Visa, Mastercard, UnitedHealth, Amazon, Aon, Domino’s Pizza, and Pool. Together, those moves offered the clearest public look yet at how Abel is starting to shape the listed-stock portfolio he largely oversees.

Berkshire Hathaway’s First Clear Greg Abel Signal

The market has spent months trying to work out what would actually change once Buffett handed the chief executive role to Abel. Berkshire Hathaway still looks unmistakably like Berkshire at the core, but this filing suggests the new regime is willing to rotate capital faster around the edges of the portfolio.

That matters because Berkshire’s quarterly filing is not just a list of holdings. It is one of the few public windows into how one of the world’s most closely watched investors is reading risk, valuation, and industry momentum across large U.S.-listed companies.

Berkshire Hathaway Returns to Airlines

The headline move was Delta. Berkshire disclosed ownership of 39,809,456 Delta shares valued at $2,646,532,635 at the end of March, equal to a 6.1% stake, according to the SEC filing and Reuters. That is a meaningful position by any standard, not a tentative toe in the water.

The move is notable because Berkshire had walked away from the airline sector in April 2020, when the pandemic upended travel demand and Buffett said conditions for the industry had changed. A return to Delta does not erase that history, but it does suggest Berkshire now sees a different balance between risk and earnings power.

Reuters noted that Delta has been regarded as one of the better-run major U.S. carriers and that the stake comes after a post-pandemic rebound in air travel, even as airlines face higher fuel costs linked to Middle East tensions. In other words, Berkshire is stepping back into the sector with open eyes rather than chasing a simple recovery trade.

Berkshire Hathaway Leaves Visa and Mastercard

The other side of the trade was just as important. Reuters’ comparison of Berkshire’s latest and prior filings showed the company fully exited Visa and Mastercard, two long-admired payments businesses that many investors treat as durable compounders.

Those sales do not necessarily amount to a negative call on electronic payments itself. Berkshire still holds very large financial positions, including American Express and Bank of America, according to the SEC filing. Even so, selling both card networks at once shows a willingness to free up capital from high-quality franchises when management sees stronger opportunities elsewhere.

That change in mix is what makes this quarter different. Berkshire Hathaway was not merely trimming around the margins. It was recycling money out of familiar winners and into a fresh airline position while keeping its biggest legacy holdings in place.

What the Filing Says About Conviction and Rotation

Looking beyond Delta, the filing reads like a statement about where Berkshire wants concentration. Some moves were small enough to feel experimental, but others were large enough to indicate a real shift in conviction.

The pattern also suggests the company is not narrowing its worldview to one sector. Technology, media, consumer, and industrial exposure all remain in the mix, but the weightings are being redistributed in a way that investors had not seen clearly before this quarter.

Berkshire Hathaway Makes Alphabet a Bigger Priority

Reuters said Berkshire more than tripled its Alphabet stake, which reached about $16.6 billion by the end of the quarter. The SEC filing supports that jump, showing far larger Alphabet holdings than in Berkshire’s previous filing for December 31.

That expansion matters because Berkshire’s technology exposure has long been associated primarily with Apple. Increasing Alphabet so sharply broadens that profile. It adds a larger position in a company tied to digital advertising, cloud services, and the capital cycle around artificial intelligence, even if Berkshire has not publicly explained the exact rationale.

It is reasonable to infer that Berkshire sees more than one route to durable tech cash flow now. Still, the filing does not prove a sweeping strategic pivot toward AI. What it does show clearly is that Alphabet has moved much closer to Berkshire’s top tier of listed holdings than it was one quarter earlier.

A Selective Bet on the New York Times and Macy’s

The filing also revealed a more selective side of Berkshire’s rotation. Reuters reported that Berkshire more than doubled its New York Times holding and owned 9.4% of the company, while also disclosing a new Macy’s stake valued at about $55 million.

Neither position carries the same weight as Delta or Alphabet, but together they suggest Berkshire is still willing to place differentiated bets outside the usual mega-cap conversation. The New York Times position points to confidence in a scaled media subscription business, while Macy’s looks more like a smaller, valuation-driven consumer retail call.

That mix fits the broader character of the filing. Berkshire Hathaway did not move in one ideological direction. Instead, it spread capital across a few distinct theses while exiting names where upside may have looked less compelling relative to price.

Why Investors Are Reading This Berkshire Hathaway Quarter Closely

Berkshire’s filings always attract attention, but this one carries more interpretive weight because it is the first full quarter since Abel became chief executive and the first full quarter after Todd Combs left for JPMorgan. Reuters reported that Abel said in February he oversaw 94% of Berkshire’s stock holdings, while Ted Weschler handled 6%.

That does not mean every trade can be assigned neatly to one person. It does mean outside investors will treat this quarter as an early guide to how Berkshire’s next era may differ from Buffett’s later years in practice, not just in title.

Delta Could Reflect Berkshire Hathaway’s Macro Read

Because Berkshire rarely comments on individual quarter-to-quarter stock decisions, observers have to read the surrounding facts carefully. In Delta’s case, the facts point to a company benefiting from normalized travel demand and premium positioning, but still exposed to fuel and geopolitical shocks.

Buying into that setup can be read as a measured macro view: not that the world is risk-free, but that some cyclical businesses still offer enough resilience and pricing power to justify a large commitment. That is an inference from the context around the filing, not an official Berkshire statement.

If that interpretation is right, the Delta stake says less about nostalgia for airlines and more about Berkshire’s willingness to own companies that can convert recovering demand into strong cash generation even when the broader operating backdrop remains uneven.

Berkshire Hathaway Still Looks Defensive at the Core

For all the attention on the new trades, the portfolio’s center of gravity remains familiar. The SEC filing still shows massive positions in Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola, Bank of America, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, and other established cash-generating businesses.

That continuity is important. It suggests Berkshire is not trying to reinvent itself overnight under Abel. The firm appears to be preserving its preference for scale, balance-sheet strength, and durable economics while becoming somewhat more active in rotating capital among secondary holdings.

That combination may be exactly what markets wanted to see: evidence of fresh decision-making without a break from Berkshire Hathaway’s long-standing discipline. Readers can expect more scrutiny of future filings as investors test whether this quarter was a one-off reshuffle or the early shape of a new pattern.

Berkshire Hathaway’s latest filing did more than reveal a return to Delta and exits from Visa and Mastercard. It showed how the world’s most watched portfolio is being adjusted in real time, and readers can continue following related market coverage at Berrit Media.