It may be shocking but true that Apple currently has $75.876 billion in cash on-hand after its raucously successful third quarter and the U.S. government has $73.768 billion.
Apple has come from being near default just 15 years ago (that’s only 1996!) and now has more real money than the U.S. government. At least partially to blame is the after the golden success, Apple enjoyed during the third quarter of 2011, in which it pulled down better than $28 billion in revenue and moved 29 million iOS devices, including 9.25 million iPads. Just about the rest were iPhones, which drove the lion’s share of Apple’s revenue gains.
And while that statistic about the U.S. government is compelling, it’s not 100-percent accurate. The $73.8 billion is what the government has on-hand before it hits that debt ceiling thing we’ve been hearing about and has to borrow more money; the real gross domestic product of the U.S., the value of what the U.S. produces as a nation, is actually in excess of $14 trillion.
Apple’s stock raised up to $400 a share last week, although it fell back down to around $390 right afterward. There’s only one publicly traded company more valuable than Apple right now, and that’s Exxon, an oil company. And in fact, while Apple’s market cap is around $365 billion, Exxon’s is falling as its stock drops hard, pulling the company’s cap to beneath $400 billion. It might not be too long before Apple surpasses it in overall value.
That day is not so far when Apple will buy an island and declare itself its own country.
