Mark Zuckerberg has almost taken Meta back to trillion-dollar market-cap status

Meta achieved a peak closing valuation of $1.08 trillion on Sept. 7, 2021, and was last valued in trillion-dollar territory two weeks later, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Wall Street has had to endure quite a bit of pain since then, however: Meta was valued at just $235.76 billion on Nov. 3, 2022, which marked a five-year low for its market capitalization.

The company’s 2022 slide down the ranks of the largest U.S. companies came as Zuckerberg badly underestimated Wall Street’s patience for Big Tech’s big-spending ways. At the time, executives unveiled plans to push ahead with considerable investments in the metaverse, even as Meta faced competitive and macroeconomic pressures to its revenue. But management quickly changed course by cutting jobs and sparking a push within Silicon Valley to rein in perks and costs that ballooned during the pandemic.

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Only five U.S. companies currently sit in trillion-dollar camp, and four of those — Microsoft Corp.
MSFT,
+1.13%,
Apple Inc.
AAPL,
+3.26%,
Alphabet Inc.
GOOGL,
+1.42%

GOOG,
+1.47%
and Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
+1.18%
— are familiar faces from Meta’s previous stint in the club. Nvidia Corp.
NVDA,
+1.88%,
now valued at about $1.4 trillion, is a new entrant since then, having been valued at only $529 million the last time Meta was a trillion-dollar company, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Meta’s market-cap gains since its recent valuation low in 2022 amount to roughly $732 billion, which Dow Jones Market Data analysts note is more than the current market values of Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
-1.70%,
Eli Lilly & Co.
LLY,
-0.90%,
Visa Inc.
V,
+0.56%
and Broadcom Inc.
AVGO,
+3.65%

Shares of Meta are trading at $374.92, 1.9% below their all-time closing high of $382.18 achieved Sept. 7, 2021. Meta’s stock needs to close at $389.13 to reach the trillion-dollar threshold now.