McDonald’s Corporation is an American fast food company, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hamburger stand, and later turned the company into a franchise, with the Golden Arches logo being introduced in 1953 at a location in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1955, Ray Kroc, a businessman, joined the company as a franchise agent and proceeded to purchase the chain from the McDonald brothers. McDonald’s had its original headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois, but moved its global headquarters to Chicago in early 2018.[5][6][7] McDonald’s is the world’s largest restaurant chain by revenue,[8] serving over 69 million customers daily in over 100 countries[9] across 37,855 outlets as of 2018.[10][11] Although McDonald’s is best known for its hamburgers, cheeseburgers and french fries, they also feature chicken products, breakfast items, soft drinks, milkshakes, wraps, and desserts. In response to changing consumer tastes and a negative backlash because of the unhealthiness of their food,[12] the company has added to its menu salads, fish, smoothies, and fruit. The McDonald’s Corporation revenues come from the rent, royalties, and fees paid by the franchisees, as well as sales in company-operated restaurants. According to two reports published in 2018, McDonald’s is the world’s second-largest private employer with 1.7 million employees (behind Walmart with 2.3 million employees).

Merck & Co., Inc., d.b.a. Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) outside the United States and Canada, is an American multinational pharmaceutical company and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Merck is incorporated in New Jersey. [4] The company was established in 1891 as the United States subsidiary of the German company Merck, which was founded in 1668 by the Merck family. Merck & Co. was expropriated by the US government during World War I and subsequently established as an independent American company in 1917. While it operates as Merck & Co. in North America, the original Merck based in Darmstadt holds the rights to the Merck name everywhere else. Merck & Co. is the world’s seventh largest pharmaceutical company by market capitalization and revenue. Its headquarters is located in Kenilworth, New Jersey.[5] The company ranked No. 78 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.[6] Merck & Co. publishes The Merck Manuals, a series of medical reference books for physicians, nurses, technicians, and veterinarians. These include the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, the world’s best-selling medical reference. The Merck Index, a compendium of chemical compounds, was formerly published by Merck & Co. before being acquired by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2012.

MGM Resorts International is an American global hospitality and entertainment company operating destination resorts in Las Vegas, Detroit, Mississippi, Maryland, and New Jersey, including Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, and Park MGM. In January 2019 the company took over Empire City Casino in Yonkers, NY and also recently opened MGM National Harbor in Maryland and MGM Springfield in Massachusetts. It has a majority interest in MGM China Holdings Limited, which owns the MGM Macau resort and casino, and is developing a gaming resort in Cotai. MGM Resorts owns 50 percent of CityCenter in Las Vegas, which features Aria Resort & Casino. It has a majority controlling interest in MGM Growth Properties, a real estate investment trust. The company began operations in 1987 as MGM Grand, Inc. and became MGM Mirage in 2000, after acquiring Mirage Resorts.

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington. It develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge Web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. As of 2016, it is the world’s largest software maker by revenue,[3] and one of the world’s most valuable companies.[4] The word “Microsoft” is a portmanteau of “microcomputer” and “software”.[5] Microsoft is ranked No. 30 in the 2018 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.[6] Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975, to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by Microsoft Windows. The company’s 1986 initial public offering (IPO), and subsequent rise in its share price, created three billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market and has made a number of corporate acquisitions, their largest being the acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in December 2016,[7] followed by their acquisition of Skype Technologies for $8.5 billion in May 2011.[8] As of 2015, Microsoft is market-dominant in the IBM PC compatible operating system market and the office software suite market, although it has lost the majority of the overall operating system market to Android.[9] The company also produces a wide range of other consumer and enterprise software for desktops, laptops, tabs, gadgets, and servers, including Internet search (with Bing), the digital services market (through MSN), mixed reality (HoloLens), cloud computing (Azure), and software development (Visual Studio). Steve Ballmer replaced Gates as CEO in 2000, and later envisioned a “devices and services” strategy.[10] This unfolded with Microsoft acquiring Danger Inc. in 2008,[11] entering the personal computer production market for the first time in June 2012 with the launch of the Microsoft Surface line of tablet computers, and later forming Microsoft Mobile through the acquisition of Nokia’s devices and services division. Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, the company has scaled back on hardware and has instead focused on cloud computing, a move that helped the company’s shares reach its highest value since December 1999.[12][13] In 2018, Microsoft surpassed Apple Inc. as the most valuable publicly traded company in the world after being dethroned by the tech giant in 2010.[14] In April 2019, Microsoft reached the trillion-dollar market cap, becoming the third U.S. public company to be valued at over $1 trillion after Apple and Amazon respectively.

Molina Healthcare is a managed care company headquartered in Long Beach, California, United States. The company provides health insurance to individuals through government programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.

The Monsanto Company (/m?n?sænto?/) was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901. In 2018, it was acquired by Bayer as part of its crop science division. It was headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto developed Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, in the 1970s, and became a major producer of genetically engineered crops. Monsanto was one of four groups to introduce genes into plants in 1983,[2] and was among the first to conduct field trials of genetically modified crops in 1987. It was one of the top 10 US chemical companies until it divested most of its chemical businesses between 1997 and 2002, through a process of mergers and spin-offs that focused the company on biotechnology. Monsanto was one of the first companies to apply the biotechnology industry business model to agriculture, using techniques developed by biotech drug companies.[3]:2–6 In this business model, companies recoup R&D expenses by exploiting biological patents.[4][5][6][7] Monsanto’s roles in agricultural changes, biotechnology products, lobbying of government agencies, and roots as a chemical company, resulted in controversies. The company once manufactured controversial products such as the insecticide DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, and recombinant bovine growth hormone. Its seed patenting model was criticized as biopiracy and a threat to biodiversity[8][9] as invasive species. [10] In September 2016, Bayer announced its intent to acquire Monsanto for US$66 billion. After gaining US and EU regulatory approval, the sale was completed on June 7, 2018.[11] The company ranked 199th on the 2018 Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue.[12] In May 2019, Bayer was ordered by a California jury to pay US$2 billion in damages to a Livermore couple, for Monsanto’s Roundup product, containing glyphosate, that couple said had caused their development of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The Mosaic Company is a Fortune 500 company based in Tampa, Florida which mines phosphate and potash, and is the largest U.S. producer of potash and phosphate fertilizer. The Mosaic Company was formed in October 2004 by a merger between IMC Global, a fertilizer company formed in 1909, and Cargill’s crop nutrition division. It is a combined producer and marketer of concentrated phosphate and potash with a customer base which includes wholesalers, retail dealers and individual growers worldwide. Its headquarters are in Plymouth, Minnesota and it employs approximately 12,000 people in eight countries. On October 26, 2018, Mosaic announced that it would be relocating their headquarters to Tampa, Florida.

Murphy USA is an American corporation operating a chain of retail gas stations that are primarily located in proximity to Walmart stores. It was founded as a spin-off of Murphy Oil in 2013. In 2018, it was ranked 279 on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue. In the first quarter of 2016, Murphy USA announced a change in its relationship with Walmart, as they began opening their own in-house gas stations and convenience stores. It plans to increase its locations independently of Walmart sites. In 2016 Murphy USA announced that Core-Mark would be the sole distributor for their chain. The company stated, “…this partnership will allow Murphy to offer a larger selection of popular convenience store products.”

National Oilwell Varco (NOV) is an American multinational corporation based in Houston, Texas. It is a leading worldwide provider of equipment and components used in oil and gas drilling and production operations, oilfield services, and supply chain integration services to the upstream oil and gas industry. The company conducts operations in more than 600 locations across six continents, operating through three reporting segments: Rig Technologies, Wellbore Technologies, and Completion & Production Solutions.

Navistar International Corporation (formerly International Harvester Company) is an American holding company, that owns the manufacturer of International brand commercial trucks, IC Bus school and commercial buses, Workhorse brand chassis for motor homes and step vans, and is a private label designer and manufacturer of diesel engines for the pickup truck, van, and SUV markets. The company is also a provider of truck and diesel engine parts and service. Headquartered in Lisle, Illinois, Navistar has 16,500 employees and a 2013 annual revenue of $10.775 billion. The company’s products, parts, and services are sold through a network of nearly 1,000 dealer outlets in the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Mexico and more than 60 dealers in 90 countries throughout the world. The company also provides financing for its customers and distributors principally through its wholly owned subsidiary, Navistar Financial Corporation.