Ole's $39 Billion Pivot: Why This Billionaire Dumped AI Giants for Microsoft

The stock market never stops moving, and neither do the portfolio managers who navigate it. While most investors focus on earnings reports and economic data, the real insights often hide in the fine print of regulatory filings. For institutional investors managing at least $100 million in assets, Form 13F filings—released within 45 days of quarter-end—provide a transparent view of exactly which stocks Wall Street’s sharpest minds are buying and selling. And in mid-November 2025, Ole Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global Investors filed a bombshell that caught many traders off guard.

Halvorsen, whose $39 billion fund has a proven track record of outperforming major market indexes, made a bold strategic shift during the third quarter ending September 30. The headline: he completely liquidated positions in two of the world’s most coveted stocks—Nvidia and Amazon—while simultaneously making Microsoft his fund’s fifth-largest holding. These moves tell a story about where Ole sees opportunity and, more importantly, where he sees risk.

The Exit Strategy: Why Ole Andreas Halvorsen Left Nvidia and Amazon

Most of Wall Street’s elite investors view the so-called “Magnificent Seven”—a group of seven transformative mega-cap companies—as core portfolio holdings. These businesses possess durable competitive advantages that theoretically justify premium valuations. Yet Ole Andreas Halvorsen decided two members of this exclusive club no longer deserved shelf space in his portfolio.

During Q3, Viking Global completely exited both positions: all 3.9 million shares of Amazon (previously the fund’s eighth-largest holding) and roughly 3.7 million shares of Nvidia (ranked 26th by market value) were liquidated. The straightforward explanation? Profit-taking. Halvorsen’s investment philosophy emphasizes holding stocks for an average of less than 19 months, meaning he’s comfortable harvesting gains when opportunities arise. After years of stratospheric gains in both names, cashing in made sense from a pure risk-reward perspective.

But Ole may be signaling something deeper. One possibility: skepticism about artificial intelligence’s near-term trajectory. While most investors acknowledge AI’s long-term potential, history demonstrates that every revolutionary technology cycle produces an early-stage bubble. The tech sector repeatedly overestimates adoption rates and optimization speeds, leading to lofty valuations that eventually crumble under the weight of reality. If such a correction arrives, Nvidia—as the primary beneficiary of the AI hardware boom—would face significant downside pressure.

A second reason likely weighs on Ole’s mind: valuation discipline. Nvidia’s price-to-sales ratio briefly exceeded 30 in early November 2025, a threshold historically associated with bubble-territory pricing for companies riding next-generation tech trends. As for Amazon, despite appearing reasonably priced on a forward cash flow basis, its traditional price-to-earnings multiple sits at an uncomfortable 34. For a disciplined manager like Ole Andreas Halvorsen, that number represented an unjustifiable premium.

The New Position: Microsoft Becomes Ole’s Top Tech Play

While exiting two positions, Halvorsen was simultaneously accumulating another tech superpower. Viking Global acquired 2.4 million shares of Microsoft during Q3, representing an investment worth nearly $1.26 billion. This purchase immediately established Microsoft as the fund’s fifth-largest holding, consuming 3.2% of total invested assets.

The timing and scale reveal Ole’s conviction. Microsoft’s dominance in cloud infrastructure—particularly through Azure, its flagship platform—positions it perfectly for the ongoing AI transformation. During Microsoft’s fiscal first quarter (ended September 30, 2025), Azure’s constant-currency growth accelerated to a scorching 39%, demonstrating that the company is capturing real AI-driven demand, not just chasing hype.

Yet Ole seems to understand something many investors miss: Microsoft is far more than just an AI proxy. Legacy business segments like Windows and Office have passed their growth peaks but continue to generate exceptional margins and abundant operating cash flow. These cash-generating engines—often overlooked in favor of flashier AI narratives—provide the financial fuel for innovation investments across multiple frontiers: advanced cloud computing, artificial intelligence applications, and quantum computing research.

Cash Powerhouse: Why Microsoft’s Business Model Attracts Smart Money

The numbers tell the compelling story Ole likely sees. At the end of September 2025, Microsoft commanded over $102 billion in combined cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments. More impressively, the company generated $45 billion in net operating cash flow during just its first three months of fiscal year 2026. This extraordinary capital generation enables three parallel corporate strategies: consistent share buybacks, reliable dividend payments, and strategic acquisitions that strengthen competitive positioning.

Valuation provides another angle supporting Ole’s thesis. Microsoft’s forward price-to-earnings ratio of 25 represents a 16% discount to its five-year average forward P/E. In a market where mega-cap technology stocks command lofty premiums, Microsoft appears relatively attractive from a valuation perspective—exactly the kind of risk-adjusted opportunity that appeals to sophisticated fund managers like Ole Andreas Halvorsen.

The contrast with Nvidia and Amazon becomes clear through this lens. Both companies deserved their outsized valuations at some point, but Ole identified a window where the mathematics shifted against them. Meanwhile, Microsoft offered better value, stronger diversification, more robust cash generation, and proven management execution—attributes that historically separate sustainable long-term winners from temporary market darlings.

Viking Global’s third-quarter filing ultimately reflects Ole’s evolution as a portfolio manager: willing to harvest profits from yesterday’s winners while simultaneously identifying today’s most compelling risk-reward scenarios. Whether through specific company selection or broad sector positioning, Ole Andreas Halvorsen continues demonstrating why his $39 billion fund merits close attention from investors seeking to understand where sophisticated capital is moving next.