Bill Ackman Says These 3 Stocks Could Be Like Buying Berkshire Hathaway in 2000

The article argues that Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are trading at compelling forward P/E multiples of 28x, 22.5x, and 18x despite strong AI-driven revenue growth and heavy capital spending. It frames these stocks as a Berkshire Hathaway-like value opportunity, with Bill Ackman suggesting their returns could "modestly exceed" the market over the next decade. The piece is largely opinion and valuation commentary rather than fresh company-specific news.

Analysis

The setup is less about “cheap mega-cap tech” in isolation and more about a market-level capital allocation mismatch. The current enthusiasm for the AI supply chain has bid up the hardware and infrastructure layer, but the cash-rich platforms are the ones converting that capex boom into durable operating leverage, and they’re trading at multiples that imply far less resilience than their balance sheets justify. If AI spend keeps compounding, the second-order winner is not just cloud revenue; it’s the ability of these firms to amortize model, data, and distribution advantages across advertising, enterprise software, and consumer ecosystems.

The key risk is that investors are still treating this as a near-term margin story instead of a multi-year share-of-wallet and pricing-power story. Capex can compress reported margins for 2-4 quarters, but the larger issue is whether the market is underestimating how fast incremental AI usage can re-accelerate top-line growth and push returns on invested capital back higher. If those benefits show up with even modest lag, the market could rerate the names before the earnings inflection is fully visible.

A more interesting contrarian angle is that the trade is crowded in the wrong part of the stack. The “AI picks-and-shovels” cohort has already monetized the narrative, while the platforms may be the delayed beneficiaries that get purchased only after the growth evidence becomes undeniable. That creates a favorable asymmetry for rotating from the most consensus AI beneficiaries into the less-loved cash generators that can self-fund the buildout.

The Berkshire analogy is useful only if valuation is paired with permanence: the upside comes from owning compounding franchises while sentiment is skeptical, not from simply buying low P/E names. The best risk/reward is in the names where capex is high, but the franchise has enough embedded distribution to turn that spend into long-duration earnings power rather than a one-off growth spike.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Go long AMZN and MSFT versus a basket of AI hardware winners for a 3-6 month relative-value trade; thesis is that platform monetization lags the infrastructure bid and catches up as earnings revisions turn. Risk: if AI capex spending rolls over, the pair underperforms.
• Initiate a staggered long in META over the next 2-4 weeks on any post-earnings weakness; target a 12-month hold with upside driven by ad-tech AI leverage and optionality in business messaging. Risk/reward improves if the market continues to punish capex-heavy names.
• Buy AMZN Jan-2027 call spreads to express the view that cloud AI demand and retail margin leverage will re-rate the stock over 18-24 months; defined downside makes sense given valuation support and execution risk.
• Short a basket of the most crowded AI supply-chain beneficiaries against MSFT/META to hedge narrative risk; use as a tactical hedge if the market starts rotating from “AI spend” to “AI monetization.”
• If BRK.B remains weak relative to mega-cap tech, consider a partial add as a defensive compounder hedge; the name can work if the market’s leadership narrows and long-duration earnings visibility is rewarded again.