Microsoft joins Apple in exclusive $2 trillion club

Microsoft Corp. took its place in the history books as just the second US public company to reach a $2 trillion market value, buoyed by bets its dominance in cloud computing and enterprise software will expand further in a post-coronavirus world.

Its shares rose as much as 1.1% to $265.64 on Tuesday in New York, enough for the software company to join Apple Inc. as one of only two companies trading at such a lofty value. Saudi Aramco eclipsed that threshold briefly in December 2019, but currently has a market value of about $1.9 trillion.

Since taking the reins in 2014, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella has reshaped the Redmond, Washington-based company into the largest seller of cloud-computing software,