Alphabet becomes $3 trillion company, joins Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia in elite trillion club

Alphabet has officially crossed into the $3 trillion club, cementing its place alongside Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia as one of the world’s most valuable companies. The milestone was reached on Monday after shares surged on renewed optimism around artificial intelligence and a favorable antitrust ruling that lifted a cloud hanging over Google’s parent company.

Class A shares jumped 3.8% to $250, while Class C shares rose 3.7% to $250.40, both closing at record highs. That rally pushed Alphabet’s market capitalization over the $3 trillion mark, a level once thought out of reach when Google went public just two decades ago.

The stock has been on a tear this year, climbing more than 32%—the strongest performance among the so-called “Magnificent 7.” By comparison, the S&P 500 is up 12.5% in the same period, CNBC reported.

AI Optimism and Antitrust Relief Push Alphabet to $3 Trillion Market Cap for the First Time

Alphabet’s rise was fueled in part by a September court ruling that spared the company from harsher penalties in its antitrust battle with the U.S. Department of Justice. The DOJ had sought to force Google to divest Chrome, a move that could have reshaped its advertising empire. Judge Amit Mehta rejected that demand, opting for lighter remedies. Investors breathed a sigh of relief, sending shares higher.

President Donald Trump weighed in after the decision, congratulating the company and calling it “a very good day.”

The ruling was more than just legal relief—it signaled to Wall Street that Google’s core business wasn’t about to be dismantled. While the company must share some data to level the playing field for rivals, keeping Chrome and Android intact reassured investors that its most valuable properties remain firmly under Alphabet’s control.

The timing couldn’t have been better. Investor appetite for AI-driven growth has only intensified in recent months, with companies across tech benefiting from the rush. Nvidia leads the pack with a $4.25 trillion valuation, while Microsoft and Apple hover near Alphabet in the $3 trillion range. Oracle added fuel to the rally last week with a bullish forecast that reminded markets how central AI has become to corporate strategy.

Alphabet’s own AI ambitions hinge on Gemini, its flagship family of models, which has begun to make inroads across products. Its cloud unit, boosted by in-house chip development and Gemini integration, posted a 32% jump in second-quarter revenue this summer.

“They still are very dependent on search, but with YouTube, Waymo, and other capabilities and products they’re working on, investors are starting to see that possibility that this isn’t just a search company anymore, this is a company that’s moving into a lot of other things,”  chief strategist at Stock Trader Network Dennis Dick told Reuters.

Alphabet’s strength still rests on search, but its portfolio stretches far beyond that. YouTube remains a cultural juggernaut, while Waymo continues to test the promise of self-driving cars. Investors are starting to see the company as more than its ad empire, betting that diversification will drive the next leg of growth.

Valuation metrics add to that case. Alphabet trades at about 23 times forward earnings, below its peers in the Magnificent 7, giving investors a cheaper entry into the AI rally.

The $3 trillion milestone comes just over ten years after the creation of Alphabet as a holding company and twenty years after Google’s IPO. For CEO Sundar Pichai, who took over from co-founder Larry Page in 2019, the challenge has been keeping Google dominant in search while fending off AI competitors like OpenAI and Perplexity, all while facing unrelenting regulatory scrutiny.

Yet this week’s milestone signals that Alphabet’s mix of legal wins, AI progress, and steady financial performance has given investors plenty to cheer. From its origins as a search engine to its current place as a $3 trillion giant, the company now finds itself in rarified air—with only three other names on the planet.