Larry Page, Sergey Brin get $15 billion richer as Warren Buffett says Alphabet bet was his call

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who rank as the world’s two richest men after Elon Musk, saw their total wealth surge by more than $15 billion after Alphabet shares jumped following legendary investor Warren Buffett’s comment that he initiated Berkshire Hathaway’s bet on Alphabet.

Speaking at an interview with CNBC, Warren Buffett said it was him, not his successor and new Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel, who led the company’s investment in the tech giant. The legendary investor acknowledged that he “made a mistake” by not investing in Alphabet sooner, although it was not among his favorites.

As a result, Alphabest shares jumped nearly 4% on Wednesday, extending gains after a 2% rise recorded on Tuesday. This boost added $8 billion to Larry Page’s net worth to rise above $300 billion, Forbes reported, adding that the rise in the share price meanwhile added over $7 billion to fellow Google cofounder Sergey Brin’s net worth, estimated at $278.2 billion.


Recently, Berkshire agreed to buy Alphabet shares worth $10 billion in a private placement last month, according to the Google parent. Berkshire began investing in Alphabet in the third quarter of last year and held $16.6 billion worth of shares as of March 31 this year. The latest investment made Alphabet one of Berkshire's five largest common stock holdings, led by iPhone maker Apple.

Back in 2017, Buffett had reflected on missed opportunities with Google. He often explained why he avoided buying tech stocks as he did not understand how they were making money or whether they would be able to do so in the past - a decision that he later said cost a lot of money for Berkshire investors.

“I would say that I don’t like it as well as at least four or five other businesses that we own. The real question with Google and all of its competitors now, because they are all laying out hundreds of billions, and that is real money. That is the game they are playing now. They weren’t playing that game with computer software,” he told CNBC during his latest interview.

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Alphabet share price

Alphabet shares have jumped more than 17% in 2026 so far, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained a little over 13%. The Google-parent in April reported that its total revenue rose 22% to $109.9 billion in the first quarter, well above an estimate of $107.2 billion, according to LSEG ‌data cited by Reuters. Revenue at Google Cloud grew 63% to $20 billion in the first quarter ended March, highlighting how AI is emerging as a decisive growth engine for Google after years of trailing larger rivals.

The cloud backlog crossed $460 billion, showing long-term enterprise demand. The results highlighted how AI integration across services is expanding revenue streams while the company continues investing heavily in infrastructure and computing capacity.

During an investor call, Alphabet executives said that there were plans to "significantly increase" spending on AI next year, BBC reported. While the Sundar Pichai-led company didn’t mention exactly how much it will spend next year, this year it plans to spend $185 billion, which is more than double what it spent in 2025. "Our enterprise AI solutions have become our primary growth driver for cloud for the first time," CEO Sundar Pichai said on a conference call with analysts, noting that sales on those products grew eightfold from a year ago.

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