The U.S. economy has always been the world's leading value creator. United States Steel became the world's first $1 billion company in 1901. Then, in 1955, General Motors dominated the automotive industry to amass the world's first $10 billion valuation.

Industrial conglomerate General Electric beat every other company to a $100 billion valuation in 1995 by selling everything from aircraft engines to household appliances. But in 2018, tech giant crossed perhaps the most important milestone in stock market history when its market capitalization crossed $1 trillion.

Apple is worth more than $3 trillion today, and it's still the world's largest company by market cap. But four other tech giants have since joined Apple with valuations of more than $1 trillion. The latest entrant into that exclusive club, earlier this year, was Nvidia, thanks to its dominant presence in artificial intelligence (AI).

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Source Fool.com