Berkshire Hathaway disclosed on Tuesday that it is investing $350 million in The New York Times, a decision the company made months after Warren Buffett had already exited most of the newspaper business through Berkshire’s earlier stock sales. The new stake was detailed in a quarterly update Berkshire filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission about its stock holdings in Buffett’s last quarter as chief executive.
The timing of the investment stood out because Buffett had sold off Berkshire’s newspapers in 2020, concluding that the industry was “toast.” Even then, Buffett suggested that certain newspapers with national brands, including the Times and The Wall Street Journal, might still fare better than the rest of the sector. In the latest filing, Berkshire’s move back into the Times was framed as a portfolio bet on the company’s wider business transformation rather than its legacy print model.
Tim Franklin, a professor and chair of local news at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, said the investment amounted to what he called “a full circle moment for Berkshire Hathaway in reinvesting in news and a huge vote of confidence by Berkshire in the business strategy of The New York Times.” Franklin said the Times’ roots are in newspaper publishing, but that it now operates as a digital business with popular games like Wordle, a sports platform called The Athletic, and more than 12 million digital subscribers.
Franklin added that struggling local newspapers could draw lessons from the Times’ “digital news powerhouse” approach. He pointed to an emphasis on online games and showcasing sports coverage that readers cannot get elsewhere, tying the Times’ audience strategy to a potential playbook for local operators that have faced subscription and advertising pressure.
Berkshire’s filing also showed other notable portfolio moves in the same period. The company increased its investment in Chevron just before President Donald Trump ordered the arrest of Venezuela’s president, the filing said, and Berkshire continued selling off more Bank of America and Apple shares. The report said those SEC disclosures do not specify whether Buffett made each move personally or whether Berkshire’s other investment managers handled some bets, noting that Buffett generally handled investments worth more than $1 billion.
Among the energy-related changes, Berkshire picked up about 8 million more Chevron shares in the quarter, bringing its holdings to more than 130 million shares. Chevron is the only major American oil company with significant operations in Venezuela, where it produces about 250,000 barrels a day through joint ventures with Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., commonly known as PDVSA. The report said Chevron’s stock rose nearly 19% since the start of 2026, in the period leading up to the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro in a raid.
The filing reflected continued trimming elsewhere as well. Berkshire sold roughly 50 million Bank of America shares over the last three months of 2025, though it still held nearly 81 million shares at the end of the year, the report said. It also trimmed about 10 million shares off its Apple stake but continued to hold nearly 228 million shares.
Beyond publicly traded stock, Berkshire owns dozens of companies outright, including insurance brands such as Geico, utilities, the BNSF railroad, and consumer and retail brands including Dairy Queen and See’s Candy. Separately, shares of The New York Times jumped nearly 3% in after-hours trading after Berkshire disclosed the Times stake, as investors weighed the implications of Buffett-era exits from newspapers against a new bet on the industry’s digital shift.