Apple Extends Lead Over Microsoft as World's Most Valuable Company

Silicon Valley darling Apple saw its worth increase this past week after it reported its earnings, which, while not necessarily better than before, were still nothing to scoff at. In fact, the results were much better than expected, causing investors to rally towards Apple stock and increasing the market cap of the iPhone maker by a cool $100 billion.

That rally has cemented Apple's position as one of the most valuable company in the world, giving it a formidable lead over Microsoft, which is ranked as the second most valuable company in the world.

So how much is Apple worth, you ask? $2.7 trillion. That's more than the GDP of so many countries in the world! For Microsoft to catch up to Apple, it would need to see its market cap increase by half a trillion dollars. We're not making this up, folks!

Given how well Microsoft is performing thanks to AI, and given that Apple really hasn't forayed into the AI part of things yet, it might not be long before Microsoft becomes the most valuable company in the world. Still, Apple has the honor of being Warren Buffett's sweetheart 😉.

Apple ranked #11 on HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings this week.

Inactive on Twitter? Kiss Your Account bye-bye 👋👋

The world's richest man, and also Twitter CEO, Elon Musk recently disclosed that the social media company will be purging accounts that have not been active for several years.

The action is one of many that Twitter has taken under the leadership of Musk, who bought the social media company for a whopping $44 billion last year (more than what it was probably worth). Ever since then, the CEO has been shaking things up, including__turning the organization leaner__ and telling employees to work hard or GTFO.

It's still too early to tell whether Twitter will regain the dominance and relevance it once hand and lost to the likes of Meta's Facebook, but for now, the company ranked #12 on HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings. Facebook ranked higher at #2.

In Other News.. 📰

• Nintendo isn't selling as many Switch as it used to. Sales of the company's wildly successful console were down 22.1% in the year ended March 31st. The company ranked #84 on HackerNoon's Tech Company Rankings this week.
• AI can now create music! Spotify has removed tens of thousands of songs that it believed were generated using AI. The removal has more to do with copyright more so than the fact that the songs were created using machines.
• $100 million: the amount Google is paying The New York Times to feature its content.
• Airbnb will now let users rent out single rooms.
• Utah now requires users to verify their age before visiting adult websites.
• LinkedIn cut more than 700 jobs as part of its decision to leave China.

And that's a wrap! Don't forget to share this newsletter with your family and friends! See y'all next week. PEACE! ☮️

— Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon