Alphabet’s Capital Dilemma: 200 Million New Shares, Berkshire’s $10 Billion, and a Cloud at Full Throttle

Alphabet expands equity offering to $84.75B for AI infrastructure, cuts cybersecurity jobs, as Berkshire Hathaway invests $10B in private placement.

Alphabet entered the weekend with a paradox hanging over its stock. Shareholders had just approved the issuance of 200 million new Class C shares for employee compensation, yet one of the world’s most celebrated long-term investors, Berkshire Hathaway, snapped up $10 billion worth of equity in a private placement. At the same time, the Google parent quietly cut jobs in cybersecurity and threat intelligence, redeploying resources toward the AI infrastructure that now consumes the bulk of its record capital spending. The message is clear: Alphabet is betting everything on artificial intelligence, and it needs both capital and patience.

The company expanded its equity offering to $84.75 billion from an originally planned $80 billion, a package that includes Class A and C common stock, convertible preferred shares, and over-allotment options for underwriters. Deal closures were set for June 4 and 5. Alphabet says the proceeds will go toward general corporate purposes, explicitly including AI infrastructure and global computing capacity. The concurrent shareholder vote on expanding the 2021 equity plan by 200 million Class C shares was designed to keep compensation competitive — but the timing could not have been more awkward given the simultaneous capital raise.

Friday’s annual meeting put governance squarely in the spotlight. Investors weighed proposals on water usage, board oversight of AI development, AI-generated misinformation, data privacy, climate targets, and voting rights. Management urged rejection of all shareholder resolutions. Final vote tallies were not immediately available, but the real signal will come from the level of support for any single proposal. Even if the board wins every vote, a high approval percentage on, say, AI governance or energy consumption would indicate where institutional pressure is building — exactly the same issues that have shaped Alphabet’s share-price narrative for months.

The business rationale for the spending spree is becoming tangible. Apple has selected Alphabet’s Gemini AI models to power a redesigned Siri, scheduled for iOS 27 in September 2026, with complex queries routed through Google Cloud running on Nvidia Blackwell GPUs. Google Cloud itself posted a 63% revenue surge to $20 billion in the first quarter, and its backlog more than doubled to exceed $460 billion — a figure that underscores the insatiable demand for AI computing capacity. CEO Sundar Pichai has signaled that capital expenditures will climb again “significantly” in 2027, building on a 2025 budget that Reuters reported in April had been raised to between $180 and $190 billion.

To fund the transformation, Alphabet is also trimming elsewhere. The latest round of layoffs hit the Threat Intelligence Group and Mandiant, the cybersecurity firm acquired in 2022. The company described the cuts as part of a routine review to shift resources into higher-growth areas. It is a pattern repeated across tech: in 2026, the sector has already seen more than 116,000 job cuts across 164 companies. Berkshire Hathaway’s $10 billion private-placement stake, meanwhile, provides a powerful endorsement — even if it also highlights the scale of capital Alphabet must raise to realize its vision.

The stock has absorbed the news with modest pain. Closing at €320.25, shares slipped 0.12% on Friday, marking the fourth consecutive weekly decline — the longest losing streak in over a year. The seven-day loss stands at 1.79%, the 30-day slide at 5.43%. Yet the longer-term picture remains robust: a year-to-date gain of roughly 19% and a 12-month advance of nearly 118%. The relative strength index sits at 49.2, neutral territory, while the price holds comfortably above the 50-day moving average of €303.83 and the 200-day average of €262.11 — a 22% premium. Analysts estimate the EPS dilution from the capital raise at about 2%, a manageable hit that still keeps the market on edge.

What investors will watch closely is whether the governance push gains traction. When official voting results are published, any surprising support for shareholder proposals would add pressure on Alphabet’s board — not immediately, but certainly by the next round of capital allocation. For now, the stock is pricing in a delicate balance: a multiyear AI-led growth story funded by a steady stream of new equity, with Berkshire’s $10 billion stamp of approval signaling that at least one heavyweight believer is willing to ride out the dilution.