Warren Buffett now owns about 5% of all US Treasury bills

Warren Buffett has swallowed nearly 5% of the entire United States Treasury bill market, locking up $300.87 billion in short-term government debt through Berkshire Hathaway, based on fresh numbers from the company’s most recent financial disclosure.

That mountain of paper gives Warren a grip on 4.89% of the full T-bill pie, which hit $6.15 trillion at the end of March 2025. Warren controls nearly one in every twenty dollars floating around in the T-bill system.

The full breakdown in the report shows that Berkshire Hathaway is sitting on $14.4 billion worth of Treasury bills categorized as cash equivalents—those with under three months left to maturity.

On top of that, $286.47 billion more is tied up in short-term investments, all of them directly pegged to Treasury bills. That adds up to the $300.87 billion total. No stocks. No junk. No crypto. Just old-school government debt.

This report comes from Berkshire Hathaway’s filings, and it shows how deep Warren is digging into safety and liquidity. According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Monthly Statement of the Public Debt, the entire Treasury bill market stood at $6.15 trillion by the end of March. That’s where the 4.89% number comes from.

Berkshire piles higher than the Federal Reserve

Warren now holds more Treasury bills than the Federal Reserve itself, which currently owns just over $195 billion. That puts Berkshire Hathaway in a bigger T-bill position than the most powerful central bank on Earth. It’s not a flex. It’s just the reality of sitting on more than $334 billion in cash, with 90% of that cash now stored in Treasury bills alone.

The yields are the real draw. As of April 2025, T-bills are paying around 4.359%, and that kind of return, backed by the U.S. government, is better than what Warren sees in the stock market. He hasn’t made a major acquisition in over two years.

His reason is simple: everything’s too expensive. Even with Berkshire owning chunks of businesses across insurance, energy, railroads, and consumer goods, Warren sees no good targets at current prices. He’s not buying because he doesn’t like overpaying. That’s it.

Even tech giants like Apple are playing the T-bill game, though on a much smaller scale. Apple holds about $30 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Half of that—$15.5 billion—sits in Treasuries. But that’s nothing compared to the pile Warren has built.

Buffett waits as the market tanks

Everyone’s watching to see when Warren moves again. Stocks have bled trillions in value this year. Indexes are nowhere near their peaks. But while others panic, Warren is just chilling on his cash fortress, holding off for what he’s called the “fat pitch.”

“He’s getting real-time information,” says Mead, referring to the way Warren receives constant updates through Berkshire’s massive group of businesses. But that doesn’t mean a crash is coming. It just means he’s not seeing any assets worth buying.

“He knew when to sell,” Mead said. “Deciding when, and what, to buy has become much harder.”

Alex Morris, the author of Buffett and Munger Unscripted, said Warren’s size limits his options. “His opportunity set is pretty small,” Morris said. Berkshire’s market value is over $1 trillion, which means even billion-dollar deals barely register.

Back in 2009, Warren bought Burlington Northern Santa Fe for $26 billion. It was the biggest deal he ever made. Today, that same number is just 2.5% of what Berkshire is worth.

Morris threw out two possible moves: take the rest of Coca-Cola or American Express private. The cost? $280 billion or $130 billion. Still, it wouldn’t make a serious dent in Warren’s war chest.

The kind of lifelines Warren extended to Goldman Sachs, Dow Chemical, and Bank of America during the last crash would have to be massively bigger today just to matter. “They’d have to be significantly larger to make a dent,” Morris said.

So while the market begs for movement, Warren is just sitting in his pile of T-bills, letting it pay him to wait.