Microsoft has reached a $3 trillion market cap, the first time in its 48-year history. It’s the second company, after Apple, to reach the milestone valuation after stock in Microsoft climbed 1.5 percent in trading on the NASDAQ on Wednesday.

Apple first hit the $3 trillion market cap two years ago, more than a year after it surpassed the $2 trillion mark in 2020. Microsoft and Apple have been trading places for the world’s most valuable company in recent weeks, with Microsoft briefly overtaking Apple earlier this month.

Microsoft’s stock has been rallying in recent months, as the company continues to ride an AI hype train from investors. Microsoft announced the pricing for its Copilot for Microsoft 365 service last year, with investors responding with a noticeable stock price bump. In recent months, the company hasn’t slowed down on AI announcements, with new features and products on a near weekly basis.

In the past five years, Microsoft’s stock price has shifted from $107 in January 2019 all the way to its current price of around $404. It’s a huge turnaround from a stock price that lingered during former CEO Steve Ballmer’s years in charge. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took charge of the company nearly 10 years ago, with acquisitions of Minecraft developer Mojang, LinkedIn, GitHub, and Xamarin all helping Microsoft navigate a world where it failed to have a mobile presence with Windows Phone.

In recent years, Microsoft, under Nadella, has also acquired several AI companies and invested more than $10 billion into OpenAI. The investments have paid off in Microsoft’s race to put AI at the forefront of its software and services with Copilot, and we might get a better idea of how that’s performing in terms of revenue next week during Microsoft’s Q2 fiscal 2024 earnings report.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/24/24049285/microsoft-3-trillion-dollar-market-valuation-milestone