As of 2020, Fortune 500 companies represented about two-thirds of U.S. GDP.
The Fortune 500 ranks the largest U.S. companies by annual revenue, rather than by profit, market value, or number of employees. In 2020, the 500 companies together generated roughly $14.2 trillion in revenue, which Fortune described as equivalent to about two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product.
That figure illustrates the extraordinary concentration of economic activity among very large corporations. The 2020 list also reported approximately $1.2 trillion in profits, $20.4 trillion in total market value, and 29.2 million employees worldwide. Revenue and GDP are not identical measures—revenue counts sales, while GDP measures value added—so the comparison is a broad indicator of scale, not a direct accounting equivalence.
A common mix-up is confusing the Fortune 500 with the Fortune Global 500. The former covers companies incorporated or operating in the United States under Fortune’s criteria; the latter ranks the world’s largest companies regardless of nationality.