Apple overtook Nvidia as largest public company this morning

Apple overtook Nvidia as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company after it hit an all-time high of $334.95 per share just 10 minutes into Friday’s trading session.

This valuation put the company above $4.92 trillion.

At the same time, Nvidia traded at $199.38, down 4% from Thursday’s close. This valued the company at $4.83 trillion — more than $100 billion behind Apple.

Although it was an all-time high for Apple, it wasn’t its first time atop the world’s leaderboard. It was also the world’s most valuable publicly-traded company in April 2025.

Nvidia has worn the crown for the vast majority of the past year, including 12 months since June 2025.

The switchover had more to do with Nvidia dropping than Apple rallying. Apple’s shares barely moved in morning trading, whereas Nvidia dropped more than 3%.

Apple rewarded for conservative AI spending

Wall Street spent July backing away from AI’s biggest spenders and reallocating to stalwarts. Apple entered Friday up 22% this year, far outperforming Nvidia’s more modest 7% after Nvidia’s 2025 outperformance.

Investment has slowly rotated out of pure AI names into memory component makers like Micron and Sandisk.

A bit of discretion about spending on AI has benefited Apple.

HSBC upgraded Apple to buy Friday with a $366 target, citing modest CapEx of 2.5% of sales versus the far more aggressive 39% of sales by hyperscalers.

Apple’s AI suite, meanwhile, cleared a registration hurdle with Beijing’s internet regulator this week — opening up a major market.

Nvidia’s slide is two months old. The stock peaked in mid-May and has shed more than $800 billion since. Apple, in contrast, has added that much back to its market cap since last month.

This morning’s selloff briefly left Nvidia trading near 20 times forward earnings, its cheapest in about seven years and less than even chocolate maker Hershey at 21x.

Apple, re-crowned for opting out of the biggest expenditures during the AI arms race, costs about 34x times forward earnings.

Nvidia and Apple still racing neck-and-neck

Nvidia’s business has obviously not broken.

On Thursday, it announced 27,500 Rubin GPUs for Japan, billed as “the world’s first national AI infrastructure for physical AI.” The project is bankrolled by a Tokyo sovereign ministry.

The chipmaker also became the first company worth $4 trillion last July, and the first past $5 trillion in October.

Commenting on Apple overtaking Nvidia today, Segal Marco Advisors’ Benjamin Hall told Reuters, “I don’t see any meaningful distinction. Nvidia [is] likely to be a significant participant in whatever happens going forward.”

The market agreed quickly. By 10:30am in New York, Nvidia reclaimed its top spot at about $4.94 trillion. Apple’s turn this morning lasted about 50 minutes in total.

As prices continue to fluctuate intraday, it is possible that Apple could regain its top slot before the close of trading.