Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK.A, BRK.B) second 13F filing of the Greg Abel CEO era came with a big surprise in a massive expansion of its Alphabet (GOOG) stake.
Warren Buffett’s investing juggernaut raised its position by 83% to nearly 106 million shares worth $38 billion, making Google’s parent its third-largest stock holding behind Apple (AAPL) and American Express (AXP).
Tucked inside that Alphabet bet is an unexpected connection to Elon Musk’s SpaceX (SPCX).
Buffett never invested in SpaceX or Tesla (TSLA), despite Musk courting his backing for years.
On the flip side, Alphabet has been a major investor in SpaceX since 2015, and as of June 30, it owned nearly 4% of SpaceX, a position valued at $94 billion, according to Reuters.
In essence, Buffett might have finally been part of Musk’s empire, just not in the way either man might have expected.
How Berkshire ended up with SpaceX exposure
Berkshire Hathaway didn’t buy into SpaceX directly.
Instead, its exposure comes through a “look-through stake,” which is basically the economic interest Berkshire owns in assets held by one of its portfolio companies.
In this case, that company is Google-parent Alphabet.
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Berkshire disclosed a 0.9% stake in Alphabet, valued at about $38 billion, at the end of Q2. Alphabet, meanwhile, reported owning about 4% of SpaceX, a position valued at $94 billion as of June 30.
A Business Insider report applied Berkshire’s proportional ownership of Alphabet to Alphabet’s SpaceX stake.
On that basis, Berkshire’s indirect interest in SpaceX came up to $815 million at quarter-end, equivalent to 0.04% of SpaceX. Following the drop in the value of Alphabet and SpaceX shares, the outlet estimated that exposure was closer to $700 million by the close on Aug. 18.
Those numbers sounded huge, but the indirect exposure to SpaceX is immaterial to Berkshire itself, as it held nearly $1.3 trillion in total assets and $324 billion in stocks at the end of June, according to Macrotrends.
Nevertheless, the exposure isn’t meaningless.
Alphabet’s stake in SpaceX represents a material asset on its balance sheet, which means that Berkshire now has a real, if indirect, financial interest in how Musk’s company performs.
Daniel Zuchnik/WireImage
Buffett admired Musk, but never invested
The irony of Berkshire Hathaway’s new “sort of” exposure to SpaceX is that Musk spent years courting Buffett, even as the two billionaires sat at opposite ends of the business spectrum.
Over the years, Musk has been critical of Buffett’s investing style.
In a 2021 interview reported by Business Insider, he said he wasn’t Buffett’s “biggest fan” and described reading annual reports as “super boring.” Yet Musk acknowledged Buffett’s skill as a capital allocator, which meant that the criticism was perhaps mostly philosophical than personal.
Also, Musk clearly wanted Buffett’s endorsement.
In 2024, as reported by Yahoo Finance, Musk wrote that Buffett “should take a position in Tesla. It’s an obvious move.” Having made similar appeals in the past, he also lamented that Charlie Munger passed on Tesla when Musk, the EV giant, was worth just $200 million.
Buffett’s views on Musk have been the opposite: He’s admired him as an entrepreneur but hasn’t had much appetite for investing alongside him.
Case in point is Berkshire’s 2023 annual meeting, as reported on by Fox Business, where Buffet called Musk a “brilliant, brilliant guy” whose “dreams have got a foundation.”
Unfortunately for Musk, that never translated into a stake in Tesla stock. Instead, Berkshire opted for its biggest competitor in the Chinese EV market, BYD, for nearly 17 years before exiting in 2025, as reported by Reuters.
SpaceX was never a classic Buffett bet
Berkshire was never anti-EV or anti-Musk.
It’s just that Buffet preferred businesses whose economics he could reasonably forecast years ahead. As WSJ reported back in 2023, he called the auto industry “too tough,” saying he couldn’t confidently predict where carmakers would stand five or 10 years later.
SpaceX stretches things even further.
Rockets, satellite networks, and Mars ambitions entail a ton of enormous capital, including technological risk, and typically carry valuations built heavily on future expansion.
SpaceX spent over $18 billion on capex in Q2, compared to just $7.8 billion in sales. That means it spent nearly $2.35 in capex per $1 in sales.
For perspective, SpaceX stock is trading at over 39 times forward sales estimates, 3,220% higher than the sector median, according to Seeking Alpha.
In terms of forward non-GAAP earnings, things get even more insane: The stock trades at 1,521 times earnings, more than 11,000% above the sector median.
So clearly, SpaceX is un-Buffett-like.
Instead, Buffett favored investments like See’s Candies, which, he said in his 2007 Berkshire letter, earned a 60% pre-tax return on invested capital when Berkshire acquired it and subsequently generated huge cumulative earnings while requiring very little additional capital.
Consistent earning power has long been one of Berkshire’s requirements, and many of Musk’s high-risk enterprises do not fall within that wheelhouse.
Buffett’s name matters, but SpaceX has bigger tests
Buffett’s name is pretty huge, to say the least, potentially moving markets.
Think of when Berkshire disclosed a $6.7 billion Chubb position in 2024, the insurer’s stock surged, and we saw something similar with Domino’s Pizza after Berkshire revealed a new stake later that year.
However, SpaceX investors need to treat this situation differently.
Berkshire never chose SpaceX, and its look-through exposure to it as a result of owning Alphabet stock is unlikely to carry the same signaling power as a direct endorsement.
For SpaceX shareholders, the fundamentals matter far more.
Its first public earnings report showed $7.8 billion of quarterly sales, but a whopping $541 million net loss left a sour taste, along with AI spending surging to $15.8 billion, above expectations.
As we look ahead, investors need to look closely at Starlink growth, Starship execution, and dilution or selling pressure as more insider shares become tradable.
In fact, Musk discussed SpaceX’s AI business during an employee meeting, saying, “Probably our AI revenue — not probably, definitely — our AI revenue will exceed all other SpaceX revenue probably in September, like next month.”
So Buffett’s indirect presence makes for a powerful headline. It should not, by itself, switch up the SpaceX investment case.
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