Microsoft's market value soared as much as $154 billion in just a day. That nearly matched Jeff Bezos' entire fortune.
- Microsoft gained as much as $154 billion in market cap in a single day after unveiling the Copilot subscription service.
- That figure is almost as large as Jeff Bezos's entire fortune.
In a single day, Microsoft's market value soared as much as $154 billion – that's practically the entire fortune of Jeff Bezos, the world's third-richest person.
The computing giant's shares jumped as much as 6% to an all-time high of $366.78 apiece on Tuesday, after it unveiled a $30 AI subscription for its Office 365 platform. That saw its market cap balloon by as much as the above-mentioned figure during intraday trades, before ending the session with a $102 billion increase.
Amazon founder Bezos' wealth totaled $157 billion as of Tuesday, according to the Bloomberg billionaires index.
Microsoft's latest market-cap gains take the year-to-date increase to an astounding $885 billion, with its stock price rallying 50% in the same period.
The company's shares have greatly benefited from a surge in investor excitement over the rise of artificial intelligence, following the smashing debut of OpenAI's ChatGPT. In January, Microsoft said it was investing $10 billion in OpenAI.
It is the second-largest company of the S&P 500's "Magnificent 7" tech mega-caps, alongside Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia, and Tesla.
Their combined value now stands at an eye-watering $11 trillion – which, to offer another comparison, is nearly triple the GDP of Germany.
After Apple became the first company to ever reach a $3 trillion valuation late last month, experts think Microsoft will be hot on its heels, according to Morgan Stanley.
The bank called Microsoft a "Top Pick" two weeks ago and said it sits in pole position to harness the disruptive powers of artificial intelligence.
"Generative AI looks to significantly expand the scope of business processes able to be automated by software, and Microsoft stands best positioned in software to monetize that expansion, which accompanied with a still reasonable valuation makes Microsoft our Top Pick in large cap software," Morgan Stanley's Keith Weiss said in a note published earlier this month.
The bank increased its price target for Microsoft by 24% to $415 from $335.