We recently compiled a list of the 10 Best Stocks to Buy According to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Canadian National Railway Company (NYSE:CNI) stands against Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust’s other stock picks.

Bill Gates has invested billions of dollars in stocks to fund the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, widely regarded as the world’s largest private foundation, formed through the merger of the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation. According to the Trust, its aim is to address major humanitarian concerns such as poverty, a lack of opportunity, and infectious diseases. Over the past 30 years, Bill and Melinda have contributed an estimated $47.7 billion of their fortune to their foundation and predecessor. The foundation’s trust maintains a highly concentrated equities portfolio, reflecting the influence of Bill Gates and his longtime friend and former foundation trustee, Warren Buffett.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has set a record $8.74 billion budget for 2025, with intentions to increase yearly distributions to $9 billion the following year. Mark Suzman, the foundation’s CEO, stated that the record approval by its governing council is consistent with the foundation’s goal of a world “where everyone, everywhere, deserves the chance to live a healthy, productive life.”

Gates’ predictions for AI

Previously regarded as an aspect of science fiction, AI appears to have entered ordinary life and is now finding its way to consumers and businesses. Bill Gates predicts that by 2035, artificial intelligence will take over roles traditionally held by doctors, teachers, and other professionals, ushering in what he calls the era of “free intelligence.” According to Gates, this transition will result in rapid advancements in AI technology that will become firmly integrated into daily life, ranging from better healthcare solutions and more accurate diagnoses to broad access to AI tutors and virtual assistants.

However, while the potential is enormous, Gates admits that there are “understandable and valid” concerns about AI’s existing capabilities. In a 2023 blog post, he stated that even the most advanced AI systems make mistakes and can contribute to the spread of misinformation. Still, Gates is optimistic: if he were to establish a new firm today, he told CNBC Make It in September 2024, it would be an “AI-centric” startup.

Our Methodology

For this list, we picked stocks from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust’s 13F portfolio as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2024. These equities are also popular among elite hedge funds.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

Canadian National Railway Company (NYSE:CNI)

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust’s Stake: $5.56 billion

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 56

Canadian National Railway Company (NYSE:CNI) is a North American transportation and logistics company headquartered in Montreal, Canada, that focuses on supply chain innovation and collaboration. It provides rail transportation, intermodal solutions, trucking, and marine transport.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, Canadian National Railway Company (NYSE:CNI)’s revenue ton miles fell 3% year-over-year to 59,305 million. Revenues dropped by C$113 million year-over-year to C$4,358 million in Q4, while operating income fell by C$190 million to C$1,628 million. Canadian National Railway Company (NYSE:CNI) also declared a 5% dividend increase for 2025, extending its 29-year growth run, and approved another repurchase program for up to 20 million shares from February 2025 to February 2026.

Appalaches Capital, an investment management firm, released its Q3 2024 investor letter. Here is what the fund said:

“During the quarter, we established core positions in two railroads: Canadian National Railway Company (NYSE:CNI) and CSX Corporation (CSX). The investment thesis is simple. Domestic railroads have not seen volume growth over the last 20 years despite being the cheapest, cleanest, and safest form of freight transportation.4 The lack of volume growth and related share losses to trucking is due to the poor reliability of the networks. However, there is strong evidence to believe that this may not be the case going forward. It seems that investors are overweighting historical characteristics of the industry and not giving credit to recent and sustainable improvements in service metrics. If the rails are able to show any sign of sustained volume growth, our investment should perform very well.

The Canadian railroads have more or less operated at full capacity over the last two decades, while the U.S. networks have not. Why is that? There are a few reasons for the anemic volume growth domestically, but only one of which is not shared by the Canadian railroads: service. In 2017, had you shipped goods by rail in Canada, the odds that your shipment would arrive on time, or the “trip plan compliance” rate, was around 90% or higher. In the U.S., these levels were closer to 50%.5 Maybe you have a different opinion, but I am not particularly excited about using a shipping service that only has a coin flip’s chance of arriving on time, even if it may be more economical…” (Click here to read the full text)

Overall CNI ranks 4th on our list of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust’s stock picks. While we acknowledge the potential for CNI as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%.  If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CNI but trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.