Apple shares hit their highest price ever on Tuesday. Apple’s stock price finished the day at nearly $229, pushing the tech giant’s market capitalization to just over $3.5 trillion — the highest value any company has ever achieved.
While Apple had a rough start to the year, its stock price has soared since it unveiled its artificial intelligence initiative called Apple Intelligence in early June at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple was quiet on AI until the Apple Intelligence unveiling, but now the company is going all in. Apple is working with OpenAI to put ChatGPT on the next iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems, and last week it snagged an OpenAI board seat. Apple’s historic rival Microsoft also has a board seat at the AI startup.
Apple and Microsoft have been neck-and-neck in the race to a seat as the world’s most valuable company over the last month. Microsoft’s major push into AI over the past year helped it surpass Apple’s market capitalization for the first time since 2021 in January. Apple finally caught up in June, before falling behind Microsoft again. Now, it’s caught back up — and become the most valuable company to ever exist (in terms of market capitalization).
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said he expects Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft to all achieve $4 trillion market capitalizations over the next year. The question is — which tech giant will get there first? Apple may be ahead now, but it could just as easily fall behind Microsoft again as the two keep trading places as the world’s most valuable company.