Even Google is running out of cash

In April 2025, Alphabet's board authorized the company to spend $70bn buying back its own shares. Fourteen months later, on Monday, it said it would sell $80bn of new stock instead. The reversal, near-symmetric in size, is the most revealing thing about a fundraising the company has framed as a show of strength.

The raise, Alphabet's first equity offering in more than two decades and one of the largest in corporate history, arrives in tranches. Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's investment company, will take $10bn through a private placement. Another $30bn will come from a mix of common and convertible shares, with up to $40bn more in open-market sales beginning in the third quarter — most of which, the company says, will cover the cost of a change in how it taxes vesting employee stock grants. The headline number is for artificial intelligence; the fine print is partly payroll plumbing.