Billionaire investor Carl Icahn exits Occidental Petroleum stock — as Warren Buffett reveals $5 billion stake in the energy giant

• Carl Icahn exited Occidental Petroleum stock last week, The Wall Street Journal reported.
• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway just revealed a $5.1 billion stake in the energy company.

Carl Icahn exited his massive bet on Occidental Petroleum stock in the same week that Warren Buffett revealed a $5.1 billion stake in the oil-and-gas producer.

The billionaire investor and Icahn Enterprises boss disclosed the sale in a letter to Occidental's board on Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Icahn had grown his position from 2.5% to around 10% in 2020, capitalizing on a slump in the oil-and-gas company's stock price, but has now cashed out against a backdrop of surging energy prices due to Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Icahn pocketed about $1 billion in profit from his wager, and has an unrealized gain of about $500 million on Occidental stock warrants he still owns, The Journal reported.

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway disclosed an almost 10% stake in Occidental last week, and revealed it bought about two-thirds of the position in three days. The famed investor's company handed Occidental $10 billion in 2019 to help fund its takeover of Anadarko Petroleum, in exchange for 100,000 preferred shares paying an 8% annual dividend, and warrants allowing it to buy 83.9 million shares at a fixed price in the future.

Icahn castigated Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub for striking that agreement with Berkshire, calling it "one of the most ridiculous deals that I've ever seen." He bemoaned in a letter to investors that Buffett "took her to the cleaners" and the negotiation was like "taking candy from a baby."

Occidental stock has surged more than 80% this year as investors bet the company will benefit from higher prices for oil and natural gas. It rose as much as 13% in premarket trading on Monday, in line with a surge in the price of crude oil towards $130 a barrel.