$4 Trillion: Nvidia's Record Valuation in Context

After briefly touching the milestone on Wednesday, Nvidia officially became the first company to close at a valuation of $4 trillion on Thursday, leaving behind companies like Apple and Microsoft, who have been the trailblazers in terms of stock market records for the past few years, prior to Nvidia’s meteoric rise. Having had some ups and downs along the way, Nvidia’s share price is up more than 1,000 percent over the past two and a half years, as the AI gold rush has catapulted the chipmaker powering the transition to the AI-centric future into new spheres.

As $4 trillion is hard to grasp, we put together a chart that adds a little perspective to that stunning number. Not only is Nvidia now worth more than Microsoft and Apple, the only other companies with a market cap above $3 trillion, but the company’s market cap exceeds the COMBINED value of Alphabet and Meta, two tech powerhouses in their own right. Looking further, Nvidia is worth more than Amazon, Walmart and Costco, the world’s three largest retailers, combined. Tesla, GM, Ford and Chrysler parent Stellantis have a combined market cap of $1.2 trillion, while Netflix, Disney and Comcast, some of the world’s largest media conglomerates, don’t even reach the $1 trillion mark. The same is true for Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Chipotle – all global household names whose joint market cap is less than 20 percent of Nvidia’s.

All this goes to show how highly Wall Street values Nvidia’s future potential. While some skeptics view the company’s meteoric rise with suspicion, fearing that the AI hype is a dot-com style bubble that could burst at any time, Nvidia bulls think that the company will be at the heart of the golden AI age for years to come. In the end, only time will tell who is right, but so far Nvidia has surprised its skeptics time and time again, growing from a market cap of around $750 billion in May 2023 to $4 trillion at a breathtaking pace.