Texas has dethroned California as the state with the most Fortune 500 companies.
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.
The Lone Star State was quick to claim the victory.
“Texas is the undisputed headquarters of headquarters,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a news release responding to the ranking, which was announced Wednesday. “The world’s leading businesses invest with confidence in Texas because of our welcoming business climate, predictable regulatory environment, and skilled and growing workforce. People and businesses are choosing Texas because Texas works.”
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.
Healthcare giant McKesson, and oil companies Exxon Mobil and Chevron, were the top three Texas companies on the list. Apple, Alphabet, and Nvidia took the top positions in California.
Tesla, which relocated to Austin from Palo Alto in 2021, ranked 43rd on the list. Other major Fortune 500 companies that left California included Oracle, Charles Schwab and Chevron.
California’s population exodus has yet to fully recover from the pandemic times in 2020. The state’s high cost of living and regulatory environment are often cited as reasons for residents opting to move.
More recently, California’s proposal for a one-time tax on billionaires prompted some, including Peter Thiel and Larry Page, to open new offices outside the state.
Some smaller companies are also leaving the state, but nearly the same number are being set up. From 2011 to 2021, the state lost a net 2% of its total of around 47,000 headquarters, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
“There is some indication of an uptick in headquarters leaving California, but it is really small in comparison to other firm trends,” said Sarah E. Bohn, vice president of the Public Policy Institute of California. “The rate of leaving is slightly higher among bigger firms.”
Bohn, in a recent report, cautioned that focusing solely on relocations overlooks the range of positive and negative forces driving headquarters activity and can misrepresent businesses’ desire and ability to operate headquarters in California and the broader impact on jobs.
Behind Texas and California was New York, home to 53 Fortune 500 companies this year. 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.
Together, the 500 companies on the list roped in $21 trillion in revenue and $2.1 trillion in profits last year, employing 30.5 million people worldwide.
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