When you walk inside a Walmart supercenter in the middle of the country, like Bentonville, Arkansas, where the firm was founded and still has its headquarters, the sheer physical scope of the business becomes instantly understandable in a manner that revenue figures alone cannot. A parking lot that serves a population that might otherwise travel thirty or forty miles to locate a comparable store, pallets of items from hundreds of vendors stacked to the roof, and checkout queues the length of a football field. Walmart has been the biggest firm in America in terms of revenue for so long that it is taken for granted rather than examined. It could be necessary to update that assumption. Amazon is predicted to take the top spot on the Fortune 500 for the first time in early 2026, making it just the fourth business in the list’s history to do so.
The methodology of the Fortune 500 is simple: The 500 biggest American enterprises, including both publicly traded businesses and private organizations with public revenue disclosures, are ranked by Fortune magazine based on their total revenue for the relevant fiscal year. The list’s depiction of the actual weight of the American economy at any given time is what gives it significance beyond its statistics. The top ten’s makeup reveals which industries are bringing in the most money, and the variations between years—companies joining, leaving, growing, and contracting—trace the structural changes in the economy in more detail than other macro indicators can.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| List Name | Fortune 500 |
| Published By | Fortune Magazine |
| Ranking Metric | Total annual revenue (fiscal year) |
| 2024 #1 | Walmart |
| 2024 #2 | Amazon |
| 2024 #3 | Apple |
| 2024 #4 | UnitedHealth Group |
| 2024 #5 | Berkshire Hathaway |
| Combined GDP Share | 2/3+ of U.S. GDP |
| Eligibility | Public companies + private firms with public revenue |
| Key 2026 Development | Amazon projected to potentially overtake Walmart at #1 |
| Reference Website | fortune.com/fortune500 |
Walmart is ranked #1 on the 2024 list, followed by Amazon, Apple, UnitedHealth Group, and Berkshire Hathaway. The top ten is completed by CVS Health, Alphabet, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and AmerisourceBergen. The fact that UnitedHealth Group and CVS Health are present alongside the biggest tech and retail companies is a noteworthy detail. American healthcare organizations make enough money to be on par with the world’s most well-known tech firms, which raises questions about the U.S. healthcare system’s cost structure as well as practical concerns about where American spending actually goes. The presence of ExxonMobil and Chevron in the top ten serves as a reminder that the energy sector still generates tremendous revenue, regardless of what the transition narrative says about the future of fossil fuels.
It is worthwhile to consider Amazon’s possible rise to the top of the list as a statement about the company’s evolution as much as a competitive footnote. In addition to being the biggest e-commerce platform in the nation, it is also the leading supplier of cloud computing infrastructure through AWS, a significant advertiser, a logistics company with its own delivery network, a streaming entertainment provider, a grocery retailer through Whole Foods, and a healthcare business through its numerous acquisitions and pharmacy operations. The Fortune 500 is ranked based on revenue, and Amazon’s revenue is increasing from so many different business lines at once that the total is getting close to a point where it is truly competitive when compared to Walmart, a company whose revenue comes from retail in a relatively concentrated way.
The Fortune 500 firms’ combined weight is a startling statistic in and of itself. These 500 companies, which employ millions of people, get goods from international supply chains, and direct investment flows that influence industries far beyond their own operations, account for more than two-thirds of the US GDP. The list represents a picture of the organizational structures that distribute the majority of the economic activity in the largest economy in the world, not merely a ranking of big businesses. Berkshire Hathaway’s position at number five is partially due to the fact that Warren Buffett’s holding firm owns consumer brands, financial services, railroads, insurance companies, and energy utilities, all of which create aggregate revenue at a scale that cannot be explained by a single industry.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that the top 10 corporations in 2024 contain organizations that were prominent a century ago as well as enterprises that didn’t exist in their current form twenty years ago. This combination illustrates how unevenly disruption truly manifests itself across various industries. In 2000, Apple and Amazon were not in this category. For the majority of the list’s existence, ExxonMobil has been at or close to the top. Because the list evaluates income rather than importance and growth rather than transformation speed, the two realities live peacefully in the ranking itself. The data, not the estimates, will determine if Amazon truly ranks first when the 2025 fiscal year data is assembled and the 2026 list is released. However, the projection itself reveals a truth about the speed at which the ground has been moving.
