The "Golden Age" of Tech Giants: Microsoft and Apple Break Through $4 Trillion, Nvidia Nears $5 Trillion

Driven by the dual forces of the artificial intelligence boom and strong consumer demand, U.S. stock market tech giants have entered a "golden era." Microsoft and Apple have both surpassed the $4 trillion market capitalization mark, while chip giant Nvidia is steadily moving toward the $5 trillion milestone.

On Tuesday, October 28, Eastern Time, Apple’s stock price rose slightly and briefly exceeded a $4 trillion market cap during trading, before closing back at $3.99 trillion, making it the third company, after Nvidia and Microsoft, to reach this milestone. This is Apple’s first breakthrough of the $4 trillion barrier.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s stock price rose 2%, with its market cap holding steady at $4.03 trillion. The direct catalyst for this growth is a major restructuring agreement reached by OpenAI, which caused the value of its OpenAI holdings to surge. According to the Financial Times, OpenAI's restructuring brought its valuation to $500 billion, with Microsoft holding a 27% stake, worth about $135 billion.

As the biggest beneficiary of the AI boom, Nvidia’s growth momentum is even stronger. After announcing a series of new deals, Nvidia’s stock price rose 5% on Tuesday, with a market cap briefly breaking $4.9 trillion and closing at $4.88 trillion for the day.

The market cap frenzy of U.S. tech giants comes as earnings reports are about to be released. This week, five of the “Magnificent Seven” — Microsoft, Google, Meta, Apple, and Amazon — will release financial results in quick succession.

Microsoft: OpenAI restructuring fuels growth, AI commercialization accelerates

Microsoft’s surging market cap is powered by its deep investments and commercialization efforts in artificial intelligence. The recent OpenAI restructuring agreement was a key step to push its stock price past the $4 trillion threshold.

According to the agreement, OpenAI completed a long-awaited restructuring, forming a for-profit entity called “OpenAI Group,” which paves the way for a potential future IPO. As OpenAI's largest single shareholder, Microsoft holds 27% of the new entity.

This arrangement not only grants Microsoft a nearly tenfold paper return on its cumulative $13.75 billion investment since 2019, but more importantly, ensures continued access to OpenAI’s cutting-edge technology.

Although under the new agreement Microsoft gave up its exclusive cloud provider status with OpenAI, media cited a person familiar with Microsoft’s position saying, the company “negotiated a great deal for shareholders,” generating enormous investment value while providing a key guarantee for future partnerships.

The agreement stipulates that Microsoft has the right to use OpenAI’s models through 2032, and OpenAI has committed to invest $250 billion in Microsoft Azure cloud services. This cements Azure’s place as the preferred platform for AI development and continuously brings Microsoft robust cloud service revenue.

Apple: Strong sales of new iPhones shift market expectations

Unlike Microsoft and Nvidia, which rely on the AI narrative, Apple’s breakthrough to a $4 trillion market cap was fueled more by its strong hardware ecosystem and consumer demand exceeding expectations.

According to a Counterpoint Research report, Apple’s newly released iPhone 17 series saw a 14% year-over-year increase in sales in the first 10 days after launch in the U.S. and China. Evercore ISI analysts also wrote Monday that “our survey shows this may be more than just an ordinary iPhone upgrade cycle,” noting that the delivery period for basic iPhone 17 models has exceeded last year's levels. In addition, the new ultra-thin iPhone Air sold out in minutes after going on sale in China.

Strong sales performance has reversed some of Wall Street analysts’ previous pessimism about Apple.

Because Apple has lagged behind competitors in AI, the company’s stock performance in 2025 at one point fell short of other tech giants. But in recent months, several analysts have raised Apple’s rating. At the same time, external factors have benefited Apple, such as a federal judge ruling that Google may continue to pay Apple billions to be the default search engine on iPhones, and most Apple products being exempt from tariffs during the Trump-era trade war.

Nvidia: Frequent deals, advancing toward $5 trillion market cap

As the “arms dealer” of the current AI revolution, Nvidia is moving toward the $5 trillion market cap with unstoppable momentum. Its continued stock price growth benefits from a series of newly announced major partnerships.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Nvidia announced a partnership with pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly to create the most powerful supercomputer for the pharmaceutical industry, accelerating new drug discovery. Also, CEO Jensen Huang unveiled new technology called NVQLink at the global tech conference in Washington, likening it to the “Rosetta Stone” for connecting quantum computers and classical supercomputers.

Meanwhile, Nvidia also announced a $1 billion investment in telecom company Nokia for AI collaboration. Upon completion, it will hold 2.9% of Nokia shares.

These intensive deal announcements further cement Nvidia’s absolute dominance in AI infrastructure and continually expand the boundaries of its technology’s applications.

So far in 2025, Nvidia has surged 50%, far outpacing Apple’s 7.5%, Alphabet’s 42%, and Meta’s 28%. The S&P 500 index rose 18% over the same period.

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