The surprising winner of Amazon vs. Walmart

Amazon just overtook Walmart on the Fortune 500. Who really won? You.

For the first time in more than a decade, Walmart is no longer the largest company in America.

With Amazon’s report of $716.9 billion in revenue for 2025, it edges past Walmart’s $713.2 billion. This is pretty significant because it means Amazon is poised to take the #1 spot on the Fortune 500 this year.

That ends a historic run for Walmart. The big-box retailer has been firmly ensconced at the top of the Fortune list for 21 of the past 24 years (briefly unseated only by ExxonMobil in years when oil prices spiked).

The average American might read that news and think, “Well, how nice for them.” But what interests me most about Amazon vs. Walmart is the fact that the average American is actually the biggest beneficiary of their battle.

Economists have a term for how this works: consumer surplus. This refers to the difference between (a) what consumers …