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Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller Has Unloaded Shares of Last Year's 2 Top Performing AI Stocks and Is Piling Into a Growth Stock That Has Climbed 150% in 3 Years

Adria Cimino, The Motley Fool

Sat, Jun 7, 2025, 3:10 PM 6 min read

You don't have to be a billionaire to invest like one -- and reap the rewards. Any of us can look at the moves made by the world's most successful investors and follow those that also fit into our investment strategy. Billionaire fund managers have proven their strengths as investors over time, making them excellent guides for novices on the wealth-building path.

With that in mind, let's consider the recent moves made by Stanley Druckenmiller, founder of the Duquesne Family Office. Over the past few quarters, he closed his position in last year's two top-performing S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average artificial intelligence (AI) stocks, and just recently, he increased his position in a growth stock that has soared by 150% over the past three years. Could taking those cues be a smart move for you?

Two investors look at something on a laptop in an office.

So, first, a bit about why Druckenmiller is a billionaire worth watching and potentially following. He founded Duquesne Capital Management in the early 1980s and ran the fund for 30 years. Over that time period, he delivered a truly remarkable annualized average return of 30% -- and importantly, never had a money-losing year. Since then, he has shifted his focus to his family office, where he invests in stocks across industries and oversees $3 billion in securities.

Now, let's consider his recent moves, starting with a major one. In the third quarter, Druckenmiller closed out his position in AI chip market leader Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), a company that climbed a bit further from there, becoming the Dow Jones Industrial Average component that delivered the biggest annual gain of 2024. The investor originally bought Nvidia shares in the fourth quarter of 2022, and from the end of that quarter through the end of last year's third quarter, they climbed by more than 700%. So this clearly was a winning investment for Druckenmiller, though in a Bloomberg interview, he expressed regret about the timing of the sale, and said he would consider buying Nvidia stock again at the right price.

Druckenmiller's second big sale came in the first quarter of this year: He closed out his position in Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR), a stock he bought a year earlier. Last year, the AI software company generated the biggest gain in the S&P 500, climbing by 340%.