Nvidia Passes Microsoft to Be World’s Most Valuable Company

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jun 4, 9:15AM EDT

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Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) has surpassed Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) as the world’s most valuable company.
However, Microsoft could reclaim the top spot at any time.

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Nvidia Passes Microsoft to Be World’s Most Valuable Company — © monsitj / iStock via Getty Images

First place in the race for the world’s most valuable company based on market cap bounces around. The three companies that exchange the spot are Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), and, more recently, Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA). The huge artificial intelligence (AI) chip company took the crown from Microsoft, but its advantage is slight, which means Microsoft could easily reclaim it.

Nvidia is worth $3.444 trillion. Just a tick below that, Microsoft is at $3.441 trillion. Apple has fallen well behind at $3.036 trillion. Apple’s stock is down 19% this year over worries about 25% tariffs on many of its products imported to the United States, attacks by President Trump about where it makes its products, and concerns about its slow move into AI-driven products.

Microsoft’s stock is up 9% this year, and Nvidia’s is 5% higher. However, after its earnings announcement, Nvidia’s stock jumped over 20%.

Nvidia’s quarterly results showed it is still at the heart of the AI revolution. Revenue jumped 69% year over year to $44.1 billion. Per-share earnings grew from $0.60 to $0.76. Its forecast for the current quarter was better than expected at $45 billion, plus or minus 2%.

Microsoft’s earnings success was more muted. Revenue rose 13% to $70.1 billion. Earnings were up 18% to $3.46 per share.

Nvidia’s market cap edge is based on its position as the largest public pure-play company in the world. By contrast, Microsoft still relies on Windows, cloud computing, LinkedIn, and its games business. Microsoft has had friction with its largest AI partner, OpenAI, leading the market to question whether this setback will harm its plans to become a fully AI-driven company. Even if it has a measure of success, it still has to compete with Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta.

Another reason for Nvidia’s success is that it is an AI arms merchant. It sells its chips to companies such as Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, OpenAI, and hundreds of others with AI aspirations. Nvidia’s primary competition is AMD, which is a distant second. It may also end up competing with emerging AI chip companies in China.

Microsoft and Nvidia are so close to one another in the market cap race that they could trade places in just a day.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.