Billionaire Bill Ackman isn’t backing away from Big Tech at a point when Wall Street questions how much money the industry is pouring into AI.
During a Forbes Iconoclast sit-down, Ackman discussed his IPO, Howard Hughes plan, and Big Tech-heavy portfolio.
The surprising comments at a point when the AI trade enters a far more skeptical phase. Investors aren’t just rewarding scale; they are asking whether the tremendous spending behind the boom will translate into real returns, especially after a massive rally in mega-cap tech stocks.
In doing so, Ackman put Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), and Meta Platforms (META) back in the spotlight.
For context, Google-parent Alphabet has led the group with double-digit YTD gains, Amazon has advanced more modestly, while Meta remains down for the year.
Hence, Wall Street is worried about the cost of the AI race, but Ackman appears more focused on what those investments could unlock next for investors.
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for The New York Times
Why Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta still anchor Ackman’s AI bet
Ackman’s case for Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta is simply about a shift in price and perception.
He said Pershing Square had admired the companies for years, but they were “never cheap enough”.
However, that situation has changed as investors began punishing Big Tech for the huge AI spending cycle now running through the sector.
The fear is obvious.
Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta are committing enormous sums to data centers, chips, and AI infrastructure, and Wall Street is now firmly in ‘show-me’ mode.
For some color, according to 13Finfo, Pershing Square’s latest released 13F for Q1 2026 shows only a small remaining Alphabet stake after Ackman sharply cut the position.
Based on the filing’s $13.7 billion portfolio, Alphabet Class A and C together accounted for just 0.8%, while Amazon was at 17% and Meta at 11.1%, bringing the three holdings to near 29%.
If we factor in Pershing’s new Microsoft stake, Big Tech accounts for somewhere between 40 and 45% of its disclosed U.S.-listed equity holdings.
Interestingly, Reuters recently reported that Ackman’s firm no longer owned Alphabet in Q2.
Additionally, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta collectively committed $505 billionto $535 billion in 2026 capex, much of which was tied to the AI infrastructure race.
Ackman doesn’t share that concern, though.
In his view, valuations have taken a hit as growth rates are accelerating, creating the kind of mismatch Pershing Square looks for.
Ackman’s playbook has never been classic “cheap stock” value investing.
For him, it has always been about buying high-quality, dominant businesses when the market is temporarily worried about something that management can turn into long-term value.
That aligns with what he shared in the Forbes interview.
“So the core strategy of Pershing Square has always been buying minority stakes in pretty big companies and helping make them more successful.”
Why Ackman says the AI winner may not matter
Ackman’s big point on AI investing was far from being an endorsement of a specific chatbot. In fact, he essentially warned against framing that trade too narrowly.
“It’s not clear which frontier model is going to be the winner and whether there will be a winner,” he said, noting that OpenAI once looked ahead, Google followed, and now “Anthropic seems to be the kind of lead horse.”
However, Ackman’s conclusion moved quickly beyond Anthropic itself.
For investors, his argument is that the model race may keep shifting, while the need for infrastructure is more durable. Every serious AI contender needs enormous processing power, which makes the demand for cloud services harder to dismiss.
“One thing’s clear: all of these companies require massive amounts of compute,” Ackman said. The cloud, in his view, is the “most scalable, safest place to get access to that kind of compute”.
That is where things flip back in favor with Amazon and Alphabet, because their cloud platforms sit closer to the rails powering the AI buildout.
Meta fits the basket differently
It isn’t the same cloud toll-road story, but it is still part of Ackman’s broader view that the market is focused on AI spending risk and not enough on what dominant platforms may earn from it over time.
Interestingly, Bloomberg reported recently that Meta is building a company to sell excess AI computing capacity.
Though that strategy is still in development and could change, the idea fits Ackman’s argument that investors might be underestimating returns from Big Tech’s AI buildout.
What it means for Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta investors
For investors, Ackman’s Big Tech bet is not one trade with three identical stories.
According to Seeking Alpha, Alphabet trades at nearly 25 times forward non-GAAP earnings, positioning it as a premium AI and search compounder, but far from being extreme if cloud and Gemini-driven growth continues to improve.
Moreover, Amazon is slightly richer on near-term earnings at about 28 times, yet its lower sales multiple underscores the weight of its retail business and the market’s focus on AWS margins, AI infrastructure spending, and long-term operating leverage.
On top of that, Meta is the cheapest of the three on forward earnings at roughly 18 times, which explains why it could still fit the Ackman-style value basket despite the criticism around AI spending.
However, the tension is that Meta’s lower multiple also underscores greater investor doubt about whether its AI capex will translate into returns as clearly as Alphabet’s and Amazon’s cloud businesses.
