Facebook and Amazon have both crossed the half-a-trillion mark, making them join the exclusive club of highly-valued companies.
The combined $1 trillion valuation for the two shows how the Wall Street has become optimistic about these tech giants. Both Facebook and Amazon experienced a meteoric rise of their stock - each rising more than 40 percent in 2017 alone, further enriching the companies' founders and investors.
Only three other companies which are all in the tech industry, are worth more than Facebook and Amazon: Apple with $798 billion, Google's parent company Alphabet with $667 billion, and Microsoft at $571 billion.
Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1995, and has surpassed Bill Gates as the world's richest person, and became a "centibillionaire". The company has altered the way people shop, creating enormous turmoil for brick-and-mortar retailers. The e-commerce giant continues to grow, as more businesses are entering the internet.
Mark Zuckerberg is a Harvard dropout, worth more than $69 billion. Facebook $500 billion milestone is impressive considering that it only has gone public in 2012. But it's able to boast more than 2 billion users, and generates a majority of its money from ads on mobile phones. The company also own both Instagram and Whatsapp, both popular in their respective industry.
In 2018, Facebook experienced a major decline in stock price, making its valuation to drop about $60 billion, down to $476 billion, due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. It regains its momentum after a short time.
