Microsoft briefly became the world's most valuable company, beating Apple in the stock market on Thursday. This happened because people were worried about Apple's products not selling well in 2024.
The company that puts together iPhones in China, called Foxconn, reported less money coming in compared to the previous year. Also, Apple is dealing with legal issues from the US Justice Department. Because of all these problems, big financial companies like Barclays and Piper Sandler lowered their opinion of Apple's stock.
At the same time, Microsoft announced they're adding artificial intelligence (AI) to their devices. They want to make it easy for people to use their AI assistant, so they're putting a special key on the keyboards of computers with Windows. Microsoft's focus on AI helped their stock grow by 57% in 2023, while Apple's stock only went up by 48%, according to CNBC.
Microsoft has briefly been the most valuable company before, in 2018 and 2021, but Apple was the first company ever to be worth more than $3 trillion.