Apple

Despite facing global setbacks, Apple hit multiple positive milestones in 2021. After many of its factories and those of its suppliers were shut down in China owing to COVID, Apple was forced to rethink its supply chain. The global chip shortage added further pressure, costing Apple billions in revenue. But after the company switched to designing more chip components in-house, sales picked up. And Apple finished the year with a gargantuan $94 billion in profits—outperforming every other U.S. company on that front. Apple also gained significant market share in the U.S. personal computing market with its Mac lineup, bringing in a record $37.4 billion in sales. In entertainment, the company made headlines at the Oscars after Apple TV+ became the first streaming service to win the coveted Best Picture award, for its coming-of-age drama CODA. Apple remained the big dog of the Trillion-Dollar Club, too: Its market valuation briefly topped $3 trillion in January 2022, though by August it had receded to a mere $2.4 trillion—still higher than any other publicly traded company. Not everything was rosy for CEO Tim Cook: In early 2022, he faced considerable employee backlash for receiving a hefty $99 million pay package in 2021, and the company has been forced to delay its return-to-office plans.