It's a neat trick: it emphasizes that they are amoral companies required to do nothing but make money, and simultaneously that they're only companies like the thousands of other gyrating tickers on the stock market. This same author frequently uses the term "Microsoft Github".

Thank you, it's framing. Now that makes sense.

It's a quite common practice to refer to companies by their ticker symbols. I see it all the time and it has never struck me as odd or noteworthy.

I've never seen it before.