The World's Most Valuable Companies 2000-2026

How did oil giants and banks lose the top spot to Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia? This bar chart race shows the 10 most valuable publicly traded companies in the world, quarter by quarter, from 2000 to mid-2026. Key moments: 2000: the dot-com bubble peaks 2007: PetroChina's Shanghai debut briefly values it at about $1 trillion 2008: the global financial crisis 2018: Apple becomes the first U.S. company worth $1 trillion 2023–2025: the AI boom, as Nvidia passes $1, $4 and $5 trillion Data: Financial Times Global 500, YCharts and CompaniesMarketCap, as compiled in Wikipedia's "List of public corporations by market capitalization". Values are quarterly top-10 snapshots (annual before 2006), interpolated between dates. Only companies with at least 15% free float are ranked, which is why Saudi Aramco does not appear. Music: "Classical 5" by Jonny S. (Mixkit)