Amazon was the first company led by CEO Jeff Bezos to reach a US$1 trillion market capitalization.
Amazon crossed the US$1 trillion threshold on September 4, 2018, during a period when investors rewarded its rapid expansion in online retail, cloud computing, digital media, and logistics. Jeff Bezos founded the company in 1994 as an online bookstore and remained its chief executive until July 2021.
Amazon Web Services became especially important to the company’s financial profile. Launched in 2006, AWS supplied on-demand computing and storage to businesses and organizations, creating a large technology-services business alongside Amazon’s consumer marketplace.
The milestone referred to Amazon’s market capitalization, not its sales or the value of goods sold through its platform. Amazon’s share price has experienced substantial rises and falls, so its position among the world’s most valuable companies has changed repeatedly over time.