Bill Ackman, founder and chief executive of Pershing Square Capital Management, has put roughly 30% of his portfolio into two stocks most investors would never pair together:MetaPlatforms and Uber Technologies. Wall Street analysts, as per aggregated price targets, see potential upside of 50 per cent inMetaand as much as 100 per cent in Uber based on recent trading levels.
Most big funds spread risk across dozens of positions. Ackman, however, runs a tight portfolio by design, and a 30 per cent combined allocation to two companies points to a high-conviction thesis that reaches beyond each company's core business into their role in artificial intelligence.
The bolder of the two bets is Uber. It's natural for anyone to question how the San Francisco company, which built its name as a ride-hailing disruptor, qualifies as an AI stock, but Ackman's wager treats it as just that. Uber's AI-adoption play sits where logistics, autonomous vehicles, and machine-learning-driven pricing all meet.
Uber has struck deals with multiple autonomous-vehicle developers. Rather than building autonomous hardware itself, Uber effectively becomes the marketplace through which self-driving fleets operate. That model makes it structurally tied to AI adoption without the heavy capital burden of developing the underlying tech.
Analysts tracking Uber stock have cited this AV optionality as a key driver behind bullish price targets implying a near-doubling from recent levels, according to Intellectia.ai. The upside case rests on a simple idea: as autonomous miles replace human-driven miles on Uber's platform, the company's take rate improves sharply because driver pay, currently the largest cost variable, falls toward zero.
Ackman addressed the AI dimension of his thinking directly. 'We own what we think are two of the most competitively advantaged businesses that are also benefiting from AI,' he said in a statement. 'Meta has built an AI infrastructure that we believe is second to none. Uber is the dominant global platform that we think will benefit enormously from the advent of autonomous vehicles.'
Meta, parent of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is the more familiar AIholding in Ackman's book. The company has invested heavily in AI infrastructure and that spending has paid off in real advertising revenue gains, as AI-driven ad targeting has sharpened returns for brands on Meta's platforms.
Analysts projecting 50 per cent upside point to several factors: continued growth in Reels, the short-form video product going head-to-head with TikTok; AI-powered tools for small business advertisers; and the longer-term potential of the company's augmented and virtual reality bets.
Together, Meta and Uber take up a large chunk of Pershing Square's portfolio. According to Motley Fool, Ackman has allocated roughly 40% of his Pershing Square portfolio to three major AI-linked stocks, suggesting a third position rounds out his AI exposure beyond these two.
The timing of Ackman's public stance on these holdings is not accidental.
Source: International Business Times UK
