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How Long it Took U.S. Companies to Reach a $1 Trillion Valuation
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On Aug. 28, 2024, Berkshire Hathaway made history by becoming the eighth U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market valuation. This happened early in the day, as Berkshire’s Class A shares (BRK.A) touched $699,699.
Berkshire has a dual-class share structure, in which Class A shares are the original stock offering which began trading in 1980. Class B shares were issued in 1996 and offer a smaller stake in the company.
To put this achievement into perspective, we visualized the time it took for other American companies to reach their trillion-dollar status, using data compiled by Investopedia.
Data and Key Takeaways
All of the data we used to create this graphic is listed in the table below.
| Company | IPO Date | $1T Date | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berkshire Hathaway | Mar. 16, 1980 | Aug. 28, 2024 | 44 years, 5 months, 13 days |
| Apple | Dec. 18, 1980 | Aug. 2, 2018 | 37 years, 7 months, 15 days |
| Microsoft | Mar. 13, 1986 | April 25, 2019 | 33 years, 1 month, 12 days |
| Nvidia | Jan. 22, 1999 | May 30, 2023 | 24 years, 4 months, 8 days |
| Amazon | May 15, 1997 | Sept. 4, 2018 | 21 years, 3 months, 20 days |
| Aug. 9, 2004 | Jan. 16, 2020 | 15 years, 5 months, 7 days |
|
| Tesla | June 29, 2010 | Oct. 26, 2021 | 11 years, 3 months, 26 days |
| Meta | May 18, 2012 | June 28, 2021 | 9 years, 1 month, 10 days |
From this dataset we can see that Berkshire Hathaway is the first non-tech company in the U.S. to hit this milestone. It’s not the first globally, though, as that title belongs to Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, Saudi Aramco.
Berkshire is best described as a conglomerate, meaning it owns controlling shares in many smaller companies. These companies often belong to different industries, providing the conglomerate with the benefits of diversification.
Some notable subsidiaries of Berkshire Hathaway are Geico Insurance, Dairy Queen, Duracell, and Benjamin Moore. To see a full list, visit Berkshire’s official website.
Zuckerberg Wins the Race
This graphic also highlights Meta as the fastest U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion valuation. Again, it’s not the fastest globally, considering Saudi Aramco went public at an initial valuation already over the mark, at $1.8 trillion.
Meta has been on a wild ride in recent years, with its valuation surpassing $1 trillion in the summer of 2021, cratering to $240 billion in the fall of 2022, then joining the $1 trillion club again in early 2024.
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