U.S. Steel was the first billion-dollar corporation, formed in 1901 through a merger. Its initial capitalization was $1.4 billion, an extraordinary figure for the era.
The company was created by financier J. P. Morgan through the combination of Andrew Carnegie's Carnegie Steel Company with Federal Steel and several other businesses. Charles M. Schwab became its first president, while Morgan helped organize the deal.
The “billion-dollar corporation” description refers to capitalization at formation, not to a modern stock-market valuation. U.S. Steel became one of the largest steel producers in the United States and played a major role in the country's industrial expansion.
This milestone is often confused with the first company to reach a trillion-dollar market capitalization, a much later event. U.S. Steel's 1901 formation instead marks an early landmark in the history of very large corporations.