In a twist that would make even the most ardent Mac Evangelist choke on their vegan latte, Nvidia has overtaken Apple to become the second-most valuable public company in the United States. As of Wednesday, Nvidia's market capitalization reached a staggering $3 trillion, making it the latest Silicon Valley darling to join the exclusive trillion-dollar club.

Nvidia's stock has surged an eye-watering 147% so far in 2024, fueled by its dominance in the AI chip market. It would seem that while the rest of us were busy figuring out how to use emojis in our emails, Nvidia was making chips smart enough to do that for us. This meteoric rise has left Apple in its calibrated dust, showing that sometimes, it's not enough to merely think different; you have to think artificially intelligent.

Microsoft still retains the top spot with a market cap of $3.15 trillion, keeping things stable as long as Clippy isn't making a sudden comeback. However, Nvidia's ascendancy represents more than just a shift in corporate rankings. It reflects a sea change in the tech industry's valuation metrics. Who knew that graphics cards, originally designed for making video games look pretty, would one day sit at the heart of our digital economy?

Adding more appeal to individual investors, Nvidia announced a 10-for-1 stock split, effective June 7 or June 10, because apparently, owning whole shares is so pre-pandemic. The news sent Nvidia's shares up 5.2% on the same day, closing at approximately $1,223.59 per share. For those keeping score, that's a lot of graphics cards!

Nvidia isn't just a sprinter; it's a marathon runner. Its data center business revenue has skyrocketed by 427% from a year earlier, hitting $22.6 billion. They now hold an estimated 80% market share in AI chips for data centers, making everyone else look as useful as a flip-phone at a tech convention.

In comparison, Apple's recent sales growth has hit a bit of a snag, with sales declining by 4% from the year-ago period. Cupertino seems to have spent too much time fine-tuning their Animojis and not enough time keeping their stock prices animated. Sorry, Siri, it looks like you're being outpaced by a silicon chip that doesn’t even have a sassy voice assistant.

To cap it all off, Nvidia is the third U.S. company—trailing only Apple (poetic justice?) and Microsoft—to cross the $3 trillion mark. It’s a club so exclusive even Jeff Bezos can’t Amazon Prime his way in… yet.

The broader implications here? As AI continues to infiltrate everything from your Netflix recommendations to your stock portfolios, the companies driving this technology will be the ones setting the pace. Today, it's Nvidia; tomorrow, it could be Skynet.

One thing is certain: as Nvidia chips away at the rankings, Apple will have to find new ways to stay more than just a pretty logo. Meanwhile, Nvidia can bask in the glow of its newfound trillion-dollar status, at least until AI learns irony and starts cracking jokes at their expense.

For more on this financial drama worthy of a Silicon Valley script, visit New York Post, CNN, and NBC News.