Apple touches $5 trillion market cap for first time
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- Apple briefly hit a $5 trillion market cap on Tuesday, one day after passing Nvidia to become the most valuable publicly traded company, with shares reaching a high of $342.89.
- Apple shares are up 25% this year, outpacing its megacap peers, while Nvidia — the first company to reach $5 trillion in October — has gained only 6% year-to-date.
- Apple has kept capital expenditures low while hyperscalers Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft collectively pour hundreds of billions into AI buildouts, relying instead on Google's cloud infrastructure and AI technology.
- Investors who once worried Apple was missing the AI boom now favor its restraint as aggressive AI spenders raise debt and go cash flow negative without clear paths to hefty returns.
- Apple announced its "Upgrade" leasing program on Tuesday letting U.S. customers lease iPhones and other products, and raised MacBook and iPad prices last month to pass on memory and storage costs.
- Thursday's earnings call will be Tim Cook's last as CEO; John Ternus takes over September 1.
Why it matters: Apple's $5T milestone flips the AI script: the company spending the least on AI infrastructure is now the most valuable, while rivals Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft torch hundreds of billions on capex that investors increasingly view as debt-funded and cash-flow-negative. Thursday's earnings will be Tim Cook's last call before John Ternus inherits a company re-priced as the disciplined megacap.
