2 Billionaires, 1 Stock: Both Have More Than 15% of Their Portfolios in Amazon
Ackman and Tepper independently allocated over 15% of their portfolios to AMZN in Q1 2026, with Tepper nearly doubling his share count quarter-over-quarter.
AWS grew 28%, its fastest pace in 15 quarters, while Amazon's custom silicon business crossed a $20 billion annual run rate with triple-digit growth.
Q1 CapEx hit $44 billion and trailing free cash flow fell 95%, making Amazon a stock worth studying at current levels, not chasing.
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Two of the most independent-minded money managers on Wall Street, Bill Ackman and David Tepper, arrived at the same conclusion in the first quarter of 2026: Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) belongs at the top of the portfolio. According to Q1 2026 13F filings dated March 31 and filed May 15, Ackman's Pershing Square held Amazon at roughly 17.4% of its portfolio, while Tepper's Appaloosa held it at roughly 15.2%, with Tepper nearly doubling his share count quarter-over-quarter.
Two managers, very different playbooks, one name over-weighted.
Ackman runs a concentrated book of eight to 12 quality compounders. Tepper is a distressed-and-macro trader who rotates aggressively. When both allocate more than 15% of capital to the same mega-cap, the signal cuts through style bias. Notably, Berkshire Hathaway exited its Amazon stake last quarter, so the signal here comes from two operators independently sizing Amazon as their highest-conviction name at a moment when consensus is nervous about hyperscaler capital spending. Keep in mind, 13F data is point-in-time and does not necessarily reflect current positioning.
The numbers support the sizing. In Q1 FY2026, reported April 29, Amazon delivered EPS of $2.78 versus a $1.73 estimate, revenue of $181.52 billion, up 16.6% year-over-year, and operating income of $23.85 billion, up 29.6%. AWS grew 28%, its fastest pace in 15 quarters, at a 37.7% operating margin. The custom silicon business (Graviton, Trainium, Nitro) crossed a $20 billion annual run rate with triple-digit growth, and advertising reached over $70 billion trailing twelve-month revenue. Stores unit growth of 15% was the strongest since COVID-19.
The forward pull is Trainium. OpenAI has committed to roughly 2 GW of Trainium capacity starting in 2027, and Anthropic up to 5 GW. That is the crux of the bull case: if frontier models commoditize, the infrastructure layer wins. As one AI investing podcast framed it, "if everything becomes a commodity, that just makes AWS even more valuable."
CEO Andy Jassy summed up the composite growth story: "AWS is growing 28% (our fastest growth in 15 quarters) on a very large base, our chips business topped a $20 billion revenue run rate (growing triple digits year-over-year), Advertising grew to over $70 billion in TTM revenue, and unit growth in our Stores reached 15%."
The risks are real. CapEx hit $44.2 billion in Q1 alone, trailing free cash flow fell 95% to $1.2 billion, and long-term debt rose to $119.1 billion from $65.6 billion. The $16.8 billion pre-tax Anthropic gain that lifted net income is non-recurring. This is exactly the tension Reddit is chewing on, with bearish posts about hyperscaler overinvestment offsetting a bullish sentiment score of 78/100 as of July 7.
On July 28, shares traded around $231.13 against a P/E of 33, up nearly 11% since the March 31 filing date. The verdict: This is a follow-worthy signal for retirement-focused investors already comfortable with mega-cap tech, precisely because two managers with opposite temperaments underwrote the same margin and AI-infrastructure thesis. It is a reason to study Amazon at current levels, not a reason to chase.
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