Microsoft reaches a $2 trillion market cap

By Clare Duffy, CNN Business

Microsoft has officially entered the most elite of clubs: corporations with a market value exceeding $2 trillion.

The tech giant is only the second publicly traded American company, behind Apple, to reach such a valuation. Oil company Saudi Aramco, which went public in 2019, has also previously passed that mark, though its market cap on Tuesday was $1.88 trillion.

Microsoft’s market capitalization topped $2 trillion during trading on Tuesday, and closed just $300 million shy of that mark. Its stock on Tuesday climbed 1.1% to $265.51.

The company reached the $2 trillion milestone just over two years after it first passed the $1 trillion market cap mark.

Covid-19 helped get it there. The pandemic meant people were spending more time on their devices, boosting demand for Microsoft’s computers, gaming systems and cloud computing platform. And a stock market rally — along with the success of tech companies in particular — lifted its shares.

Microsoft’s stock has gained 64% since March 2020, when pandemic lockdowns began going into effect in the United States.

In April, Microsoft reported sales were up 19% year-over-year to $41.7 billion for the three months ended March 31.

“Over a year into the pandemic, digital adoption curves aren’t slowing down,” CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement at the time. “We are building the cloud for the next decade, expanding our addressable market and innovating across every layer of the tech stack to help our customers be resilient and transform.”

Apple’s market value passed $2 trillion last August, and it currently stands at $2.24 trillion. Now, Microsoft has joined its ranks, with two other Big Tech firms, Amazon and Google, nipping at their heels. Amazon’s market cap hit $1.77 trillion on Tuesday, and Google parent Alphabet’s reached $1.67 trillion.