Santa Monica, California - Bill Ackman's eyes are on this generation of Warren Buffett.

Despite the hesitation of activists turning into long-term investors, he believes he will be Omaha’s next Oracle.

"Warren is an idol and he should have his own place in history," the CEO of Pershing Square told Yahoo Finance at the Milken Institute global conference on Monday.

Ackman swung like Buffett on Monday.

Pershing Square said it will invest $900 million in real estate company Howard Hughes Holdings (HHH), giving it a 46.7% stake. Ackerman will become the company's executive chairman. Ryan Israel, the CIO of Pershing Square (and Ackman's Waiting (Waiting), will serve as the CIO of Howard Hughes.

The plan is to turn Howard Hughes into a diversified holding company that buys other companies to bring value to investors.

If it sounds familiar, it was founded decades ago by Buffett model and business partner Charlie Munger.

In 1965, Buffett controlled Berkshire Hathaway, a troubled textile manufacturer at the time. Today, Berkshire is a large landmark with everything from the Burlington North Railroad to Coca-Cola (KO) and American Express (AXP).

Buffett said over the weekend that he will resign as CEO by the end of 2025 after 60 years at the helm. He will hand over the ins rope to his hand-selected successor Greg Abel.

"We will not start with elephants, not rabbits, but small animals," Ackerman said of his acquisition strategy for Howard Hughes.

Buffett famously said a few years ago that he was going to "hun elephants" to unearth large takeover targets to keep Berkshire Hathaway's massive cash piles at work. Buffett currently has $350 billion in cash, but he has been reluctant to trigger a deal in recent years due to his valuation.

Ackerman said he is different from Buffett in terms of valuation because he is willing to pay for his faster growth company.

"Warren likes businesses like us. I said he wasn't ready to pay for them. You know, he's been very, very disciplined. I don't know that a company he bought paid more than 10 times his payment, basically operating income," Ackman noted.

“I would say that when we buy Chipotle (CMG), it doesn’t look cheap. Many of the companies we invested in at the time didn’t look cheap, but because of the growth in revenue, the cash flow of the business, I’ll quickly get cheaper over time. But, I would say very similar principles (to Buffett) (to Buffett) about our allocation of capital, how we see people, and whether we can get along with our business.