Micron's $1.27T valuation nears Meta and Tesla amid AI memory boom

Micron, the Boise-based memory chip maker, has soared to a $1.27 trillion market cap, briefly exceeding Meta and Tesla on Thursday before settling nearly even. The stock surged 236% in the past month to $1,132 per share, a dizzying rise from its sub-$100 levels before mid-2025. Wall Street sees Micron as the next Nvidia thanks to an AI-driven shortage of High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM), DRAM, and NAND chips, which are essential for AI servers. This supply crunch, dubbed 'RAMageddon,' is expected to persist until 2027, driving up prices for consumer electronics like Apple products and Xbox consoles.

Micron delivered blockbuster Q3 earnings: revenue quadrupled year-over-year to $41.45 billion, and profit skyrocketed from $1.88 billion to $28.2 billion. The company forecasts Q4 revenue of $49-51 billion. Micron has signed 16 long-term strategic customer agreements with Nvidia, Anthropic, and others to insulate itself from the boom-bust cycles that historically plagued memory makers. William Blair analyst Sebastien Naji notes demand growth continues to outpace new cleanroom capacity, reiterating an Outperform rating. Whether Micron can maintain this momentum remains uncertain, but for now it has captured Wall Street's imagination.