Amazon’s share price has surged to a new all-time high on Tuesday, sending the ecommerce giant’s market cap beyond $1.1 trillion during intraday trade for the first time.
Stock in the Seattle-based mega-corp traded for more than $2,280 on Tuesday afternoon. This beats Amazon’s previous price record of $2,170.22 by 5%, which CNBC notes was set in February.
[Read: Amazon warehouse worker tests positive for coronavirus day after Bezos visit]
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has brought unprecedented demand to Amazon, with social distancing measures pushing huge swathes of people towards buying essentials like groceries and medicine online.
Amazon has announced its hiring as many as 175,000 additional staff to keep up, and has even begun developing in-house COVID-19 testing labs to better track the disease as it spreads through its warehouses. It also pledged to raise warehouse wages by $2 (or 2 euros) for hours worked in April.
While traders have certainly shown their confidence in Amazon and CEO Jeff Bezos, their most-recent success has not been free of growing pains.
A steady stream of disgruntled workers have alleged unsafe working conditions in the midst of worsening COVID-19 outbreaks (but to be fair, Amazon workers have been sharing nightmarish stories for years).
Controversy also surrounds the dismissal of one worker who organized an employee protest for better treatment — a matter which the New York human-rights watchdog is now investigating, ordered by the city’s mayor.
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