Amazon beats out Walmart for No. 1 company on Fortune 500
Amazon topped Fortune’s 2025/2026 Fortune 500 list, finishing No. 1 with more then $700 billion in revenue and a 12% year-over-year gain-ending Walmart’s 13-year run at the top. The rise is attributed to major shifts in consumer behavior driven by technology.
Alphabet (Google’s parent) was Fortune’s most profitable company, with about $132 billion in earnings. The next companies in the top 10 include UnitedHealth Group, Apple, Alphabet, CVS Health, Berkshire Hathaway, McKesson, Exxon, and Cencora.
the Fortune 500 covers two-thirds of U.S. GDP, with aggregate revenues of $21.0 trillion and both profits and market value also increasing year over year. The cutoff to make the list rose to $7.5 billion in revenue.The 2026 edition also reported a record 56 women leading Fortune 500 companies,whose firms accounted for 11.2% of total revenue.
The article also notes that SpaceX and Anthropic have filed IPO paperwork, with SpaceX’s potential offering described as potentially the largest ever, and Anthropic valued at nearly $965 billion despite disputes involving the War Department over lethal autonomous weapons and surveillance.
Amazon placed No. 1 on the Fortune 500 ranking on Wednesday, overtaking Walmart’s 13-year streak as the highest-earning U.S. company.
The online retailing giant surpassed 0 billion in revenue last year, with a 12% year-over-year increase, according to the annual list that ranks America’s 500 largest companies by total revenue for the previous fiscal year.
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Amazon’s two-decade rise to the top of the Fortune 500 is the result of a dramatic shift in consumer preferences due to technological change. The company’s dethroning of the big-box store giant is the first time Walmart has fallen out of first place since 2012, when it was second to energy and gas company Exxon Mobil.
Meanwhile, Alphabet, Google’s massive parent company and conglomerate, stood as Fortune’s “most profitable company,” with $132 billion in earnings. Rounding out the top 10 are UnitedHealth Group, Apple, Alphabet, CVS Health, Berkshire Hathaway, McKesson, Exxon, and Cencora.
The total of Fortune 500 companies covers two-thirds of the U.S. GDP, “with $21.0 trillion (up 5%) in revenues, $2.1 trillion (up 12%) in profits, and $55 trillion (up 19%) in market value, while employing 30.5 million people worldwide.” This year’s required revenue threshold to make the top 500 was $7.5 billion, an increase of 5% from last year.
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The 2026 list featured a record 56 women at the helm of Fortune 500 companies. Their companies represented 11.2% of Fortune 500 company revenue, the highest share in the list’s history, and “the fourth consecutive year the figure has cleared double digits,” Fortune reported.
The announcement comes on the heels of news that Elon Musk’s SpaceX and AI giant Anthropic have filed paperwork for an initial public offering. Anthropic’s announcement gave the company an expected valuation of $965 billion despite the company’s dispute with the War Department, which claims the company refused to offer its services for lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. As for SpaceX, the anticipated IPO is projected to be the largest ever, with up to $80 billion raised from investors, which would make Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
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