Nvidia’s shares briefly made it the world’s most valuable public company in June 2024 during the artificial-intelligence boom. Its market capitalization overtook those of Microsoft and Apple during trading on June 18, 2024.
Nvidia’s processors became crucial infrastructure for training and running large AI models. Its hardware was supported by a broader software ecosystem, including CUDA, libraries, and tools that made its chips attractive to researchers and cloud-computing companies.
The ranking was temporary because market capitalization changes with every movement in share prices. Microsoft and Apple soon returned to the top position as their own shares moved and Nvidia’s valuation fluctuated.
This event also illustrates why “richest company” is shorthand rather than a precise accounting term. Market cap measures the value assigned by stock-market investors, while revenue, profit, assets, and cash holdings measure different aspects of corporate size.