Tech’s biggest companies just wrapped up a huge year.
The seven most valuable U.S. technology companies — Apple , Microsoft , Amazon , Alphabet , Facebook , Tesla and Nvidia — picked up a combined $3.4 trillion in market cap in 2020, powering through a global pandemic and broader economic crisis.
Between continued optimism over iPhone sales, Microsoft’s growing Teams collaboration product, Amazon’s ongoing control of e-commerce and the strength of Google and Facebook’s online ad duopoly, Big Tech was neither slowed by Covid-19 nor the rising number of investigations into its dominance.
Tesla’s wild rally served as the biggest surprise.
The stock climbed almost ninefold this year, lifting the electric car maker’s market cap from $76 billion at the beginning of the year to $669 billion at Thursday’s close. Despite initial factory closures due to the pandemic, Tesla bounced back to deliver a record number of vehicles in the third quarter.