Billionaire Bill Ackman is a legend in the investing world. The activist investor leads the hedge fund he founded, Pershing Square Capital Management, which manages about $20 billion in assets.
His strategy of taking large positions in a small number of stocks and holding them for many years was very successful. Pershing Square’s 2025 return of 34% is nearly double the performance of other companies S&P 500 Index. This is not a one-off. Over the past eight years, Pershing has returned 23% annually, far outpacing the S&P’s 14% gain.
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When Ackman adds a stock to Pershing’s portfolio, it tends to get a lot of attention. This week was no exception, as he revealed massive stakes in artificial intelligence (AI) and social media giants meta platform (NASDAQ: META).
Ackman revealed the position during an investor presentation on Pershing’s website. Meta’s stake is worth about $2 billion, accounting for about 10% of the hedge fund’s $20 billion portfolio.
The hedge fund manager makes a compelling case for owning Meta stock. Ackman noted that the social media giant is a “dominant leader in the long-term, fast-growing digital advertising space” with an “entrenched global user base of more than 3.5 billion daily active users.” He went on to lay out the four core pillars of his investment thesis:
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A high-quality advertising business model with increasing returns to scale
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Meta’s business model is one of the most obvious beneficiaries of AI integration
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The company is well positioned for long-term profitable growth after planning to increase spending in 2026
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It has a strong balance sheet and highly profitable core business, providing significant financial flexibility.
Meta stock is one of the undisputed winners of the artificial intelligence era, returning 450% since the start of 2023. However, the stock has been neutral over the past year as concerns about huge spending to harness artificial intelligence have weighed on the stock. In the fourth quarter, Chief Financial Officer Susan Lee said the company plans to spend between $115 billion and $135 billion in capital expenditures by 2026, a 73% year-over-year increase at the midpoint of its guidance.
Ackman thinks these concerns are overblown. “We believe concerns about Meta’s AI-related spending plans underestimate the company’s long-term upside potential for AI,” he wrote.
