New Fortune 500 Rankings: Texas Overtakes California, But Amazon is #1, Beating Walmart (yahoo.com) 41
"Texas has dethroned California as the state with the most Fortune 500 companies," reports the Los Angeles Times:
The Fortune 500 list ranks the largest U.S. companies by revenue. This year, 57 of the top companies are headquartered in Texas, compared with California's 56. It's a reversal from two years ago when the Golden State had the pole position...
California's corporate haters say they try to avoid the state's high costs, income taxes and strict regulations, but the western state is still a top money maker. "California dominates on nearly every other measure: its Fortune 500 companies are the most profitable ($647 billion), most valuable ($20 trillion), and employ more people than any other state (2.8 million workers)," Fortune said in a news release. Indeed, despite the naysayers, Californian companies have been leading the world in developing artificial intelligence technology as well as the latest in space and defense tech. The state is home to nearly 400 "unicorns," or billion-dollar startups — more than any other state, according to CB Insights. It also gobbled up nearly two-thirds of U.S. venture capital last year, with San Francisco Bay Area startups such as OpenAI leading the way, according to the business information platform Crunchbase.
Texas and California have been in a tug-of-war for the crown. In 2024, after a decade, California bagged the top spot with 57 companies on the list, while Texas and New York tied in second with 52 companies each... The fourth spot was tied between Illinois and Ohio, with 29 companies each.
Amazon was the top company on the list, ending Walmart's 13-year reign at the top of the annual Fortune 500 companies list. Amazon's 2025 revenue was $716.9 billion, compared with Walmart's $713.2 billion. Seattle-headquartered Amazon joined Exxon Mobil, General Motors, and Walmart as the only four companies to have ever held the top position since Fortune began publishing the data in 1955.
California's corporate haters say they try to avoid the state's high costs, income taxes and strict regulations, but the western state is still a top money maker. "California dominates on nearly every other measure: its Fortune 500 companies are the most profitable ($647 billion), most valuable ($20 trillion), and employ more people than any other state (2.8 million workers)," Fortune said in a news release. Indeed, despite the naysayers, Californian companies have been leading the world in developing artificial intelligence technology as well as the latest in space and defense tech. The state is home to nearly 400 "unicorns," or billion-dollar startups — more than any other state, according to CB Insights. It also gobbled up nearly two-thirds of U.S. venture capital last year, with San Francisco Bay Area startups such as OpenAI leading the way, according to the business information platform Crunchbase.
Texas and California have been in a tug-of-war for the crown. In 2024, after a decade, California bagged the top spot with 57 companies on the list, while Texas and New York tied in second with 52 companies each... The fourth spot was tied between Illinois and Ohio, with 29 companies each.
Amazon was the top company on the list, ending Walmart's 13-year reign at the top of the annual Fortune 500 companies list. Amazon's 2025 revenue was $716.9 billion, compared with Walmart's $713.2 billion. Seattle-headquartered Amazon joined Exxon Mobil, General Motors, and Walmart as the only four companies to have ever held the top position since Fortune began publishing the data in 1955.
But but but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:But but but... (Score:5, Interesting)
...but Fox said that California is bad! How many of the Fortune 500 companies now in Texas actually started in California and then moved to Texas and still have a substantial California presence? The game is called talent, and talent doesn't want to move to Texas, especially female talent.
I imagine they (are told to) say that because Texas gives preference to corporations over its citizens while California doesn't, but that's just a guess. For example, Public School Rankings by State 2026 [worldpopul...review.com] has CA at #8 and TX at #34 - surprisingly, the latter is lower than FL at #24. (New York is highest at #1, btw.)
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Typical Fox news viewer.
Re:But but but... (Score:5, Funny)
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You guys sound like Russians, only instead of a random CNN comment it's Fox News.
Here in TFS, we have an early indicator suggesting that business is moving out of California. I say early indicator, because business moving somewhere is the egg. Eggs have a way of turning into chickens. Then, you follow that up with dubious claims about skilled California workers not moving with them. The data says otherwise -- namely, that higher skilled (and thus higher paid) workers are going where there's no income tax. N
Re: But but but... (Score:2)
Rent free
Re: But but but... (Score:2)
Last I heard, you were evicted. Unless, of course, your nose is in her butt again.
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"You know what I don't like about Texas? It's fucking desolate. Very, very desolate. Which is the main reason I don't want to move there, but I may anyway."
What part of Texas are you referring to? Texas West of San Antonio or North of DFW is pretty desolate, but most of the population of Texas actually lives in the "Texas triangle" which is nothing like West Texas. The natural environment of Houston is actually more of a coastal swamp. It's nowhere near as nice as California on average, but even West Texas
lmao (Score:3, Interesting)
All those great corporations and TexA$$ still makes less than half the money California does. Having lots of large corporations just means your politicians are giving out tax breaks on your dime. Those same corporations will move in 2 years to where the NEXT tax break is. The Mega-Corps are extra-national moving assets around to avoid taxes...Apple comes to mind. They paid Ireland so little the EU complained..
(No. I'm not congratulating you on that. I'm wafting the stench away. You can smell San Fran-Shit-N
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Austin is nice. At least when it's under 80F.
I actively avoid purchasing from companies based in Texas, though. And other states (Arkansas and Tennessee come to mind) that are playing the same "race to the bottom". I choose to vote with my wallet. But don't forget the supposed "good guys" like Apple, which moved its corporation to another country altogether to dodge taxes -- the same "race to the bottom" but o
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You are aware that "female talent" usually means "porn actress"? I recommend using a different term. Unless that is what you meant to refer to, the California porn industry is pretty large ...
Now do incorporation (Score:2)
Yep, Texas is nothing compared to Delaware. Of course, that's just based on incorporation, which has nothing to do with where most employees work or where most revenue is generated, so it's silly to boast about that. Then again, it's no less silly to boast about where the headquarters are physically located.
Useless measure (Score:5, Interesting)
Large corporations are leeches not contributors. The only true measure is GDP. California's is approximately TWICE what Texas claims. In fact it takes Texas AND New York to beat California. If we could ensure these corporations actually paid taxes things might even out.
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Great comment. I read about TX offering sweetheart (tax) deals to the megacorps but this GDP stat shows it's not really helping TX.
Re:Useless measure (Score:5, Insightful)
The only true measure is GDP. California's is approximately TWICE what Texas claims.
GDP counts things like rent, where CA certainly beats Texas
However... I would argue that price-adjusted per-capita GDP is probably a better metric, and I think you'll find that those are about a tie.
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Absolute GDP is not a relevant metric. GDP per capita is. California does not have twice the GDP per capita of Texas. It has about 22% higher GDP per capita. Still a good number, but if you're going to make a point it helps to understand the numbers you use.
New York's GDP per capita is higher than Californias, so if they were the same sized state with the same population they would outperform California.
Additionally GDP includes the total economic activity, it's not a metric that defines whether it makes se
Re: Useless measure (Score:2)
"New York's GDP per capita is higher than Californias, so if they were the same sized state with the same population they would outperform California."
Wat
reading between the lines (Score:3)
We should break up California and Texas so that two states don't get to steer the economics and politics of the entire country.
Re: reading between the lines (Score:2)
We could certainly use more senators.
Good for you to hate Texas so much! (Score:1)
Good for you that you hate Texas so much, just absolutely NEVER move there and leave Texas alone!
And IF you actually move, which you should not, nobody wants your hairbrained CA-ideas there, ok? Remember why you left.
Re:Good for you to hate Texas so much! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Good for you to hate Texas so much! (Score:2)
What you US firstworlders and global 1-percenters seem to forget about your own history: your entire country was built by people who were so fanatical, Europe did not want them anymore so they left for the US to be crazy and zealous there.
And only the really gung-ho ride-or-die craziest ones made it to the west coast or far down south.
Your entire history is deeply religious. You are a deeply Christian nation, and for the most part this has served you extremely well.
Now you should ask yourself between basic