America’s Most Valuable Company Every Year Since 1995

Over the last three decades, the growth of tech companies has driven a shift in the ranking of the most valuable companies in the United States.

In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu and Bruno Venditti utilize data from the American Business History Center to present the history of America’s most valuable public company from 1995 to 2023. Valuations are for March 31 of that year, and are not adjusted for inflation.

The Surge of Tech Giants

In the early 1990s, the top rank was dominated by General Electric. The centenary company held a significant presence in the market with its various divisions, encompassing aerospace, power, renewable energy, digital industry, and finance.

In 1999, however, GE was surpassed by Microsoft. In that year, Bill Gates’ company launched its first online store, and Internet Explorer 5.0 was introduced, followed by more than 1 million downloads of the new version in less than a week.

Year
Company
Market Cap (as of Q1)
1995
General Electric
$93,322 billion
1996
General Electric
$126,523 billion
1997
General Electric
$169,388 billion
1998
General Electric
$260,147 billion
1999
Microsoft
$418,579 billion
2000
Microsoft
$492,462 billion
2001
General Electric
$407,054 billion
2002
General Electric
$401,499 billion
2003
Microsoft
$266,037 billion
2004
General Electric
$329,240 billion
2005
ExxonMobil
$392,636 billion
2006
ExxonMobil
$372,792 billion
2007
ExxonMobil
$425,795 billion
2008
ExxonMobil
$455,929 billion
2009
ExxonMobil
$345,815 billion
2010
ExxonMobil
$314,154 billion
2011
ExxonMobil
$411,638 billion
2012
Apple
$568,615 billion
2013
Apple
$415,683 billion
2014
Apple
$479,069 billion
2015
Apple
$724,773 billion
2016
Apple
$604,304 billion
2017
Apple
$753,718 billion
2018
Apple
$851,318 billion
2019
Microsoft
$904,861 billion
2020
Microsoft
$1.199 trillion
2021
Apple
$2.050 trillion
2022
Apple
$2.849 trillion
2023
Apple
$2.609 trillion

Both Microsoft and GE competed for the top spot from 2000 to 2004. However, after 2005, ExxonMobil held the position for seven years. Following the 1998 Exxon and Mobil $74 billion merger agreement, the largest oil company in the world benefited from increasing gas prices over that period.

Since 2012, however, the ranking has been dominated by Apple. Boosted by the success of its iPhone line, its biggest cash cow, the company was only behind Microsoft in 2019 and 2020 when concerns about COVID-driven supply chain shortages affected the iPhone maker’s stock price.

More recently, Microsoft overtook Apple as the world’s most valuable company in January 2024, after the iPhone maker’s shares had a weak start to the year due to growing concerns over demand in China.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s shares rose sharply thanks to the early lead the company had taken in generative artificial intelligence through an investment in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.