Berkshire may have Lost $50-B After Dumping Apple Shares

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway made one of its best investment moves buying Apple stock from 2016 to 2018—but it erred in selling most of the holding in 2024 and this year.

Berkshire held 280 million Apple shares on June 30, down from 906 million shares at the end of 2023. (Photo: Apple)

Specifically, it has cost about $50 billion in unrealized gains, with Apple stock reaching a record on Monday, Andrew Bary reported for Barron’s Daily on Oct. 21, 2025.

Berkshire held 280 million Apple shares on June 30, down from 906 million shares at the end of 2023. Most of its sales came in the second quarter of 2024, when it unloaded nearly 400 million shares.

Barron’s crunched the numbers: Berkshire bought the stake—originally totaling about one billion shares at an average price of $35 per share—mostly between 2016 and 2018, based on a disclosure in Buffett’s 2021 shareholder letter.

Barron’s estimates that Berkshire has received an average of about $185 per share for the Apple stake.

That resulted in a pretax gain of more than $90 billion last year and about $6 billion so far in 2025.

With the stock now trading nearly $80 higher than the estimated average sales price, that translates into about $50 billion in foregone profits. To top it off, Berkshire had to pay corporate income taxes on the Apple sale.

Barron’s estimates those taxes at nearly $20 billion, slashing its net proceeds to about $155 per share. As for why he sold, Buffett suggested in May 2024 that the possibility of higher corporate taxes was an issue.

Its outsized position in Berkshire’s portfolio likely was also a factor.

There has also been speculation that Buffett wanted to raise cash and fortify Berkshire’s already formidable balance sheet ahead of his retirement as CEO at the end of 2025.

Berkshire was sitting on more than $330 billion in cash on June 30.