Apple now sits at roughly $4.62 trillion in market cap, ahead of Alphabet’s $4.34 trillion. Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) still leads the leaderboard at $5.39 trillion.
Alphabet is raising the first $40 billion in fresh cash through two channels: a $30 billion public stock offering sold by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, and the $10 billion sold directly to Berkshire.
That money funds Alphabet’s planned 2026 AI capital spending of $180 billion to $190 billion, roughly double last year’s level.
Alphabet is also implementing a $40 billion at-the-market program to fund employee stock tax withholding, drip-feeding new shares into the open market starting in Q3 in a sell-to-cover model.
That rolling supply may be another reason traders have been punishing the stock.
A Polymarket contract on the world’s second-largest company at the end of June now prices Apple at 63% and Alphabet at 33%.
For Alphabet to retake second place, the stock would likely need to recover recent losses and add several per cent more by June 30 while Apple holds or fades.
The chances of Google taking the top spot by the end of the year have diminished rapidly, going from a high of 37% to 13% now.
The timing tracks with a wave of AI listings about to compete for institutional capital. Anthropic filed confidentially for an IPO at a reported $965 billion valuation, with OpenAI and Elon Musk‘s SpaceX also scheduled to go public later this year.
Locking in Berkshire’s endorsement and securing fresh cash before those deals start absorbing liquidity may matter more to Alphabet than the short-term share price hit.
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Source: Markets
