Microsoft has recently become the latest company to join Wall Street’s exclusive ‘Trillion Dollar Club’ after reaching the target market capitalization in late April. Now, as America's most valuable company, they join Apple in the club, who have seen huge growth over recent years.
And while no individual has yet amass a trillion dollar fortune, Jeff Bezos is the first to hit the $100 billion mark and could be heading to his first trillion sooner than you’d think.
The team at Comparisun have analysed historical valuations of some of the world's richest companies and individuals in an attempt to predict who will join the Trillion Dollar Club and when they will get there.
Microsoft passed the $1 trillion milestone after its stock price jumped following strong fiscal Q3 earnings, doing so ahead of their biggest rival… Google. This valuation also means that they overtook Apple as the world's most valuable company.
While the $1 trillion valuation is something that investors will keep a close eye on, it has been said that it's something that Microsoft doesn’t particularly care about. Microsoft's chief marketing officer Chris Capossela even said: “This is a metric that nobody on the senior leadership team is tracking. Nobody is sitting around high-fiving when the stock hits some new high”.
Apple passed the $1 trillion target in August 2018, becoming the world's first-ever public company to be worth that much, 42 years after they were founded. At that time, it meant that Apple’s stock market value was more than a third the size of the UK economy, Turkey and Switzerland. Their astounding performance undoubtedly left rivals trailing in its wake - in fact, the day that Apple celebrated their triumph, Facebook suffered the worst day for a single company in US stock market history, losing more than $120bn.
So, with Apple and Microsoft sitting comfortably as the richest companies, what happened to Amazon? As of today (25 September 2019) their market cap sits at just $861B, which is undoubtedly much less than where they need to be - especially if they want to claim their throne and join two of the biggest tech names in the world.
Amazon did hit the threshold in the past, but have since dropped out again so, what happened there? As of late, Amazon stock has dived, with unusually negative changes and news snippets mentioning stories of struggle with third-party sellers and battles against the likes of Walmart and Target.
Within the last 18 months, the company has experienced volatility driven by ongoing trade wars, big tech privacy concerns and a weak macro economy, however, its stock has gained 52.7% since the start of the year and is up by a whopping 452% in the last five years. According to Comparisun, Amazon will only have to wait another year or so to rejoin the elite ‘Trillion Dollar Club’.
Google is set to join their fellow tech giants Apple and Microsoft in hitting the $1 trillion mark within the next year also, who will then be closely followed by the last of the Big Four tech companies, Facebook. The social media kings’ market cap currently sits around $665bn but has seen an average growth of 24% over the last five years. If this continues, they could see themselves sitting pretty at the $1 trillion mark in 2022.
Next in line would be Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate and financial services provider, Visa, who could both hit $1 trillion valuations as soon as 2023. See the full 25 companies below to discover when they could hit the mark too.
Jeff Bezos officially sits at the No.1 spot on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans and has shattered records in his wake. According to Bloomberg, the founder and CEO of Amazon has $166 billion to his name. Bezos had an early passion for computers and went on to study computer science and electrical engineering at Princeton. When he graduated, he worked on Wall Street and became the youngest senior vice president at his firm and just four years later, in 1994, he opened Amazon.com - then just an online bookstore. In less than 30 years, the company has created a net income of $10.07 billion and current revenue of $232.89 billion.
Just behind Bezos is the well-known Mark Zuckerberg, who could gain trillionaire status at a much younger age than Bezos. If Zuckerberg stays at his current rate growth, he could see himself being worth $1 trillion aged 51. He launched Facebook from his dorm room in 2004 as just a ‘Harvard Thing’, until he decided to spread it to other schools. After an interesting journey to the present day, according to numerous sources, Zuckerberg only receives a one-dollar salary as the CEO. He has also pledged to give away 99% of his and his wife's wealth, which is estimated at around $55 billion.
Since 2010, Time Magazine has named him among the 100 wealthiest and most influential people in the world as a part of its person of the year award. He was also ranked 10th on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People in 2016.
Other names on the list include Xu Jiayan, Founder and Chairman of Evergrande Real Estate Group, the world's most valuable real estate company, who would become a trillionaire at 68, in 2027. Just behind Jiayan is Jack Ma, co-founder of Alibaba Group, who would hit the $1 trillion mark at the slightly younger age of 65 in 2030. Both co-Founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, also make the list, estimated to make a trillion aged 77.
Of the 25 individuals we analysed, only eleven realistically have a chance of becoming a trillionaire during their lifetime, based on their recent rate of wealth growth.
Read next: Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber: How seven massive companies spend their billions
And while no individual has yet amass a trillion dollar fortune, Jeff Bezos is the first to hit the $100 billion mark and could be heading to his first trillion sooner than you’d think.
The team at Comparisun have analysed historical valuations of some of the world's richest companies and individuals in an attempt to predict who will join the Trillion Dollar Club and when they will get there.
Which companies will be the first to join the Trillion Dollar Club?
Microsoft and Apple - these tech giants are no strangers to… well, anyone. In fact, according to most recent figures, there are over 1.2 billion Microsoft users and over 155 million monthly active business users of Office 365. As of 2019, estimates also suggest that 45% of all smartphone users in the US are Apple iPhone users. At the beginning of the year, Apple had around 1.4 billion active devices worldwide, which has no doubt increased since then.Microsoft passed the $1 trillion milestone after its stock price jumped following strong fiscal Q3 earnings, doing so ahead of their biggest rival… Google. This valuation also means that they overtook Apple as the world's most valuable company.
While the $1 trillion valuation is something that investors will keep a close eye on, it has been said that it's something that Microsoft doesn’t particularly care about. Microsoft's chief marketing officer Chris Capossela even said: “This is a metric that nobody on the senior leadership team is tracking. Nobody is sitting around high-fiving when the stock hits some new high”.
Apple passed the $1 trillion target in August 2018, becoming the world's first-ever public company to be worth that much, 42 years after they were founded. At that time, it meant that Apple’s stock market value was more than a third the size of the UK economy, Turkey and Switzerland. Their astounding performance undoubtedly left rivals trailing in its wake - in fact, the day that Apple celebrated their triumph, Facebook suffered the worst day for a single company in US stock market history, losing more than $120bn.
So, with Apple and Microsoft sitting comfortably as the richest companies, what happened to Amazon? As of today (25 September 2019) their market cap sits at just $861B, which is undoubtedly much less than where they need to be - especially if they want to claim their throne and join two of the biggest tech names in the world.
Amazon did hit the threshold in the past, but have since dropped out again so, what happened there? As of late, Amazon stock has dived, with unusually negative changes and news snippets mentioning stories of struggle with third-party sellers and battles against the likes of Walmart and Target.
Within the last 18 months, the company has experienced volatility driven by ongoing trade wars, big tech privacy concerns and a weak macro economy, however, its stock has gained 52.7% since the start of the year and is up by a whopping 452% in the last five years. According to Comparisun, Amazon will only have to wait another year or so to rejoin the elite ‘Trillion Dollar Club’.
Google is set to join their fellow tech giants Apple and Microsoft in hitting the $1 trillion mark within the next year also, who will then be closely followed by the last of the Big Four tech companies, Facebook. The social media kings’ market cap currently sits around $665bn but has seen an average growth of 24% over the last five years. If this continues, they could see themselves sitting pretty at the $1 trillion mark in 2022.
Next in line would be Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate and financial services provider, Visa, who could both hit $1 trillion valuations as soon as 2023. See the full 25 companies below to discover when they could hit the mark too.
Predicting the world’s first trillionaires
No-one could avoid Jeff Bezos’ recent drama in the headlines, with his estimated $38 billion loss as part of his recent divorce. However, despite this, he is still by far the richest person in the world. His net worth has grown by 34% on average over the last five years, which could see him stepping over the $1 trillion mark as early as 2026 at the age of just 62.Jeff Bezos officially sits at the No.1 spot on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans and has shattered records in his wake. According to Bloomberg, the founder and CEO of Amazon has $166 billion to his name. Bezos had an early passion for computers and went on to study computer science and electrical engineering at Princeton. When he graduated, he worked on Wall Street and became the youngest senior vice president at his firm and just four years later, in 1994, he opened Amazon.com - then just an online bookstore. In less than 30 years, the company has created a net income of $10.07 billion and current revenue of $232.89 billion.
Just behind Bezos is the well-known Mark Zuckerberg, who could gain trillionaire status at a much younger age than Bezos. If Zuckerberg stays at his current rate growth, he could see himself being worth $1 trillion aged 51. He launched Facebook from his dorm room in 2004 as just a ‘Harvard Thing’, until he decided to spread it to other schools. After an interesting journey to the present day, according to numerous sources, Zuckerberg only receives a one-dollar salary as the CEO. He has also pledged to give away 99% of his and his wife's wealth, which is estimated at around $55 billion.
Since 2010, Time Magazine has named him among the 100 wealthiest and most influential people in the world as a part of its person of the year award. He was also ranked 10th on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People in 2016.
Other names on the list include Xu Jiayan, Founder and Chairman of Evergrande Real Estate Group, the world's most valuable real estate company, who would become a trillionaire at 68, in 2027. Just behind Jiayan is Jack Ma, co-founder of Alibaba Group, who would hit the $1 trillion mark at the slightly younger age of 65 in 2030. Both co-Founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, also make the list, estimated to make a trillion aged 77.
Of the 25 individuals we analysed, only eleven realistically have a chance of becoming a trillionaire during their lifetime, based on their recent rate of wealth growth.
Read next: Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber: How seven massive companies spend their billions