Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTDaniel Sparks, The Motley FoolFri, July 17, 2026 at 1:13 AM GMT+2 5 min readWarren Buffett stepped down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKB)(NYSE: BRKA) at the end of 2025, but he still speaks out on some of the conglomerate's investments. And in a CNBC interview on Wednesday, he made clear that his view of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) hasn't budged. It remains one of his favorite businesses, he said, even with a change at the top just weeks away.That change is no small thing. Apple announced in April that longtime CEO Tim Cook will become executive chairman on Sept. 1, handing the chief executive job to hardware engineering chief John Ternus. A leadership handoff at one of the world's most valuable companies would normally give investors pause.Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »Buffett, whose Berkshire owns more than $70 billion in Apple stock, doesn't seem worried.So does his continued conviction make the stock a buy near its record high? Let's take a look.Image source: The Motley Fool.Buffett first bought Apple in 2016, and it has grown into Berkshire's single biggest position. It accounts for about 22% of the conglomerate's roughly $263 billion equity portfolio, according to its most recent quarterly filing, making it Berkshire's largest holding by a wide margin.More telling still, Berkshire left the stake untouched in the first quarter, its first full period under new CEO Greg Abel. After years of steady trimming, standing pat amounts to a quiet vote of confidence.Part of Buffett's ease with the succession may be that Apple's staying power doesn't rest on any one executive. Ternus has been at the company since 2001 and has run hardware engineering through the iPhone's most important years.And the numbers he inherits are strong. In its fiscal second quarter (the period ended March 28, 2026), Apple's revenue rose 17% year over year to $111.2 billion, and earnings per share climbed 22% to $2.01. Both were March-quarter records.iPhone revenue jumped 22% to a record $57 billion, powered by demand for the iPhone 17 lineup. Services revenue, meanwhile, hit an all-time high of about $31 billion, up roughly 16% year over year.That services business is the quiet engine here, and it's the piece I'd watch most. It carries a gross margin near 75%, against about 39% for products, so as it outgrows the rest of the company, it steadily lifts Apple's overall profitability.Terms and Privacy PolicyEU DSA contactPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info