Only 24 CEOs on the 2025 Fortune 500 list are founders or co-founders of the companies they lead. That amounts to just 4.8% of the index. Yet this small group commands outsized influence.
Collectively, their companies generated $862.9 billion in revenue last year, proving that founder-led companies are still just capable of competing as they scale.
While the number of founder-CEOs is unchanged from 2024, it marks a five-year increase from 16 in 2020. Some of the most iconic companies that were featured on the list at the time—such as Amazon, FedEx, and Netflix—are no longer run by their founders. But even as some founders have stepped aside, others remain firmly in control, particularly in the tech sector, where founder-CEOs continue to dominate. They include Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Elon Musk of Tesla, and Jensen Huang of Nvidia.
Beyond Silicon Valley, founders are steering powerful operations at companies in transportation, hospitality, and consumer goods. Roger Penske runs one of the world’s largest automotive retailers. Rodney Sacks still leads Monster Beverage, the energy drink powerhouse. Brian Chesky remains at the helm of Airbnb.
Their staying power pushes back on earlier assumptions that founder-led companies lack the operational discipline, management rigor, or scale to thrive in the upper echelons of corporate America. For years, conventional wisdom—backed by academic research—suggested that founders were better suited for early-stage growth than long-term leadership.
In fact, a 2017 study by professors from Duke, Vanderbilt, and Harvard found that founder-run companies tended to be less productive and more poorly managed than those led by non-founders. Yet several of today’s top-performing firms are not only founder-led but also lead their sectors in revenue.
Still, most founders do not stay on as CEO after taking their companies public. A 2018 study from the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance reported that 60% of founders are replaced post-IPO. Even among those who stay, only half remain in the role beyond three years unless they hold strong voting control.
The 24 founder-CEOs on the 2025 Fortune 500 have not only defied those odds, but many have held onto leadership for well over a decade. Leonard Schleifer, CEO of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, has run his company for more than 37 years.
What is equally striking is who is missing. None of the founder-CEOs on this year’s Fortune 500 are women. Notably, in the list’s 70-year history, only one woman founder-CEO has been featured: Golden West Financial led the mortgage lender for more than four decades. She last appeared in 2005—the final year a woman founder has held a top spot on the index.
These are the highest-ranking 10 founder-CEOs leading 2025 Fortune 500 companies:
Mark Zuckerberg CEO, Meta PlatformsRevenue: $164.5 billionJensen HuangCEO, NvidiaRevenue: $130.5 billionElon MuskCEO, TeslaRevenue: $97.69 billionMichael DellCEO, Dell TechnologiesRevenue: $95.57 billionRichard FairbankCEO, Capital One FinancialRevenue: $53.94 billionMarc BenioffCEO, SalesforceRevenue: $37.9 billion
Roger PenskeCEO, Penske Automotive GroupRevenue: $30.46 billionBom KimCEO, CoupangRevenue: $30.27 billionMarc RowanCEO, Apollo Global ManagementRevenue: $26.26 billionJack DorseyCEO, BlockRevenue: $24.12 billion
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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