Apple on Monday became the first publicly traded company with a stock market value of over $3 trillion, marking the latest milestone in the Silicon Valley heavyweight’s spectacular stock surge since introducing the iPhone in 2007. Apple’s shares have climbed around 5,800 percent since co-founder and former Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in January 2007, far outpacing the S&P 500’s gain of about 230 percent during the same period. Microsoft and Amazon have each briefly eclipsed Apple as the most valuable publicly listed U.S. company in the past three years, although Apple has recently pulled ahead. Microsoft’s stock market value currently stands at about $2.5 trillion, while Amazon’s is at around $1.7 trillion, having fallen behind Alphabet, now at $1.9 trillion. Several Big Tech firms saw their shares outperform Apple’s 2021 gain of 34 percent. Microsoft and Tesla both rallied about 50 percent in 2021, while Alphabet …