Buyback King

Who’s the Biggest on Earth?

Apple was briefly the world's most valuable company again. On Friday, its market value climbed to about $4.9 trillion, nudging past Nvidia as the sell-off on AI stocks continued. But as the trading day unfolded, Nvidia pared some of the losses and ended the day just a notch above Apple.

The fact that Apple is competing head-to-head with Nvidia for the top spot is striking. Apple has spent much of the past decade being accused of moving sluggishly: cautious on launching genuinely new products, slow on revamping Siri, and largely sitting out on generative AI.

Yet investors keep rewarding the company. Since Tim Cook became chief executive in 2011, Apple shares have surged nearly 2,400%. He's due to step down in September.

The Greatest Cash Return Story

Apple's success after losing its visionary leader Steve Jobs is usually explained by pointing to Tim Cook's operational discipline. But there’s another key ingredient too: cash

Apple generates so much money that it can reward shareholders on a scale few companies can match. In 2012, less than a year after Cook took over, Apple launched its first major share repurchase program and restored dividends after a 17-year break.

What started as a shareholder-friendly shift under fresh leadership has ballooned into the biggest corporate cash-return program in history.

Apple Swallows Nearly $1T of Shares

Between fiscal year 2013 and the end of the first quarter of 2026, Apple spent $840 billion buying back its own stock. In comparison, during the same period, Apple has paid only about $181 billion in dividends.

When a company repurchases stock, it reduces the number of shares in circulation. Buybacks tend to boost the share price and improve the earnings-per-share metric. Many firms like it, including Nvidia, which has launched an $80 billion buyback program. But no other company has done it at the scale of Apple.

There's no end in sight. The Apple board has approved another $100 billion for future repurchases, and the company had $145 billion of cash at the end of December. The company remains hugely profitable, raking in $112 billion in net profit last fiscal year. The cash continues to regenerate.

Not Betting Everything On AI

While rivals race to build AI infrastructure, Apple has followed a different, more cautious strategy.

Last year, Apple spent about $12.7 billion on capital expenditures. This year, it plans to spend $14 billion. Meanwhile, AI-heavy giants Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta expect to splurge together more than $700 billion in data centers, servers, and advanced AI chips this year.

It remains to be seen whether new CEO John Ternus will continue Cook's shareholder-friendly approach or find new uses for Apple's vast cash pile.

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