Alphabet asks shareholders to foot an $80 billion bill for AI expansion

Shares of Alphabet slipped in Monday’s after-hours trading, after the cloud and internet giant announced an $80 million equity offering. This sends a message that the company would rather have shareholders fund its ambitious expansion of artificial-intelligence infrastructure than use cash on hand.

The equity raise includes an agreement reached to sell $10 billion worth of stock to Berkshire Hathaway

BRK.B — half in Class A common shares and half in Class C capital stock — in a private placement. Based on a MarketWatch analysis of the terms of the placement and recent ownership disclosures, that would increase the number of Alphabet shares Berkshire owns by about 49% to about 86.4 million shares, or 1.3% of the total shares outstanding.