MICROSOFT NOW WORTH R56 TRILLION

Software giant Microsoft has just reached the R56 trillion mark. This is due to the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) boom that increased the company’s share tremendously.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, invested billions of dollars in AI in 2023. This included commercialising and adding AI tools like ChatGPT into its list of products before its rivals managed to do so.

CNN reports that shares of Microsoft are up more than 7% year to date after jumping about 40% last year, largely due to investor enthusiasm for AI and its potential to create growth for the company.

The stock rose to R7,650 per share on Wednesday. This means it rose by almost 1.5%.

The only other company in the world to reach the $3 trillion status is Apple.

In recent weeks, economists have coined the term Magnificent 7 to describe companies that have almost single-handedly boosted markets across the world to new heights. Besides Microsoft, the list also includes Tesla, Meta, Alphabet, Apple, Nvidia, and Amazon.

To put Microsoft’s market value into perspective, it’s now larger than France’s entire GDP.

Image credit: Reuters