Key Takeaways:
Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management began accumulating Microsoft Corp. shares in February 2026 after the stock slid on its fiscal second-quarter report, building a roughly $2.4 billion position by the end of May.
"Microsoft is a core holding that had de-rated to about 21 times forward earnings on what we view as overblown fears about Azure durability and the company's competitive position in AI," Ackman said in a post on X ahead of Pershing Square's quarterly 13F filing.
Ackman funded the Microsoft purchase partly by trimming his Alphabet Inc. position. MSFT stock traded around $392 per share when he began buying, down roughly 20 percent on a year-to-date basis and well below its 200-day moving average of $444.22. The stock had fallen after Microsoft's fiscal Q2 report, which showed Azure growth decelerating and raised questions about AI monetization timelines.
Separately, Pershing Square has been building an Amazon.com Inc. stake from scratch since roughly mid-2025, Fortune reported on June 25. The roughly $2.4 billion position is now the firm's second-largest holding. Amazon's core profit center, AWS, grew 28 percent year over year in the March quarter, its fastest growth in 15 quarters, on a 37.7 percent operating margin. Amazon's custom Trainium and Graviton silicon crossed a $20 billion annual run rate, and the company has locked in landmark commitments for up to 2 gigawatts of Trainium capacity for OpenAI and 5 gigawatts for Anthropic.
Ackman is not alone in rotating into mega-cap AI infrastructure names. David Tepper, Seth Klarman, and Al Gore's Generation Investment Management have also been accumulating Amazon in recent filings, while Microsoft carries a 45.6 percent operating margin and 54 analyst buy ratings.
The $2.4 billion Microsoft bet signals Ackman expects Azure's growth trajectory to reaccelerate as enterprise AI adoption scales. Investors will watch Microsoft's fiscal Q4 2026 earnings, expected in late July, for updated Azure revenue growth and AI services contribution.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
