Microsoft became the first company to reach a $3 trillion market capitalization.
The software giant crossed the milestone in January 2024 as investors valued its strong position in enterprise software, cloud computing, and artificial-intelligence services. Microsoft’s market value had grown far beyond its original identity as a personal-computer software company.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in 1975. The company’s early breakthrough came from licensing operating systems for personal computers, while products such as Microsoft Office later made its software central to workplaces worldwide. Its Azure cloud platform became another major growth engine.
The $3 trillion figure is a market valuation, not a cash balance. It changes whenever Microsoft’s share price changes and can move below the threshold after a market decline. Microsoft briefly joined Apple at the $3 trillion level before market movements altered their relative positions.