Home Depot

Overview

The Home Depot, Inc. is the world’s largest home-improvement retailer, an Atlanta-based public company (NYSE: HD) founded in 1978 by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank (USA Today). It runs 2,359 stores plus 1,250+ distribution branches, employs 470,000+ people, and reported $164.7 billion in fiscal 2025 sales (Home Depot). A September 2022 Accountable.US scorecard named it the top corporate donor to federal lawmakers who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election (Fast Company).

The company sits in both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500, and Ted Decker serves as chair, president and CEO (Home Depot).

Origins and scale

Home Depot’s premise was deliberately disruptive: warehouse-sized stores carrying vast selection at low prices, staffed by people who could teach customers to use the merchandise (USA Today). The first two stores opened in 1979, pioneering the big-box format in home-improvement retail — cavernous aisles of lumber, drywall, tools, and appliances that dwarfed the locally owned hardware stores of the era (USA Today).

The company grew alongside the suburban homeownership boom of the 1980s and 1990s, then institutionalized do-it-yourself culture through in-store workshops, instructional guides, and online tutorials (USA Today). Today its company-reported footprint spans all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, all ten Canadian provinces, and Mexico (Home Depot). It is also a major force in disaster response, routinely pre-positioning plywood, generators, and water pumps ahead of hurricanes and wildfires (USA Today).

The pro-contractor pivot: the SRS acquisition

In March 2024 Home Depot announced, and on June 18, 2024 completed, the acquisition of SRS Distribution — a specialty-trade distributor serving professional roofers, landscapers, and pool contractors — for an enterprise value of approximately $18.25 billion (Home Depot). SRS, founded in 2008 and headquartered in McKinney, Texas, brought more than 760 locations across 47 states under a family of local brands (Home Depot). Trade publication Digital Commerce 360 called it Home Depot’s largest acquisition ever (Digital Commerce 360).

The strategic logic was explicit: the deal raised Home Depot’s total addressable market to approximately $1 trillion, an increase of about $50 billion, by accelerating growth with the residential professional customer (Home Depot). SRS brought a 2,500-plus professional sales force, a 4,000-plus truck fleet, and jobsite delivery capabilities aimed at larger contractors’ complex, delivery-intensive orders (Digital Commerce 360). In short, the retailer was betting its future less on weekend DIYers and more on professional contractors and B2B digital commerce (Digital Commerce 360).

Political spending and the Democracy Scorecard

In September 2022 — days after President Joe Biden’s speech warning that American democracy faced an existential threat — Accountable.US unveiled its “American Democracy Scorecard,” grading the top 100 Fortune 500 companies on 14 criteria (Fast Company). The criteria covered pro-democracy statements, political-spending disclosure transparency, and whether companies’ PACs had donated to lawmakers who opposed voting-rights legislation, backed objections to certifying the 2020 election, or opposed creating a January 6 investigation committee (Fast Company).

Two-thirds of the companies received failing marks; AT&T was the lowest scorer, followed by Verizon, with the remaining worst-ten companies being Energy Transfer, Charter Communications, Comcast, Boeing, ExxonMobil, Lockheed Martin, UnitedHealth Group, and Pfizer — and telecommunications was the worst-ranked industry (Fast Company). Home Depot emerged as the top corporate donor to federal lawmakers who voted to overturn the 2020 election, contributing over $350,000 to that group — a figure attributed to the scorecard’s campaign-finance analysis, presented as reported and not independently audited (Fast Company). The scorecard also found that 33 of the 50 companies that had paused donations to election objectors after January 6 had quietly resumed them (Fast Company).

Home Depot by the numbers

Scale and financial figures are company-reported; the donation row is third-party reporting on the scorecard.

Metric	Figure	Source
Fiscal 2025 sales	$164.7 billion	Company earnings release
Fiscal 2025 net earnings	$14.2 billion ($14.23 diluted EPS)	Company earnings release
Retail stores (end of fiscal 2025)	2,359	Company earnings release
SRS distribution locations	1,250+	Company earnings release
Associates	470,000+	Company earnings release
SRS acquisition enterprise value	≈ $18.25 billion	Company acquisition release
2022 Scorecard top-donor finding	Over $350,000 to election-overturning lawmakers	Fast Company (Capital & Main)

Frequently asked questions

Who founded Home Depot? Home Depot was founded in Atlanta in 1978 by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, and its first two stores opened in 1979. Their warehouse-sized stores with vast selection, low prices, and knowledgeable staff pioneered the big-box format in home-improvement retail (USA Today).

How big is Home Depot today? At the end of fiscal 2025 the company reported 2,359 retail stores plus 1,250+ SRS distribution locations across the U.S., D.C., Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, ten Canadian provinces, and Mexico, with over 470,000 associates and fiscal 2025 sales of $164.7 billion (Home Depot).

What was the SRS Distribution acquisition? Home Depot completed its approximately $18.25 billion acquisition of SRS Distribution on June 18, 2024 — the company’s largest acquisition ever. SRS, based in McKinney, Texas, supplies professional roofers, landscapers, and pool contractors through 760+ branches (Home Depot; Digital Commerce 360).

What did the 2022 Democracy Scorecard say about Home Depot? Accountable.US’s September 2022 American Democracy Scorecard graded the top 100 Fortune 500 companies on 14 democracy criteria. Reporting by Capital & Main/Fast Company identified Home Depot as the top corporate donor to federal lawmakers who voted to overturn the 2020 election — over $350,000, presented as reported, not independently audited (Fast Company).

Who leads Home Depot? Ted Decker is chair, president and CEO of The Home Depot, as confirmed in the company’s earnings and acquisition announcements (Home Depot). Decker has publicly framed the company’s pro-contractor business as the engine of its next growth chapter, notably praising the SRS Distribution acquisition as an excellent fit for the retailer (Home Depot).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not claim the “over $350,000” figure was independently verified — it is presented as the September 2022 scorecard coverage reported it, and the scorecard was described as a regularly updated tool, so later totals may differ. It does not reproduce the scorecard’s full rankings or its underlying campaign-finance data, and the scorecard’s own website could not be consulted (the domain now serves unrelated spam content). Store counts, associate counts, and financial figures are company-reported and were not cross-checked against SEC filings. The profile does not cover founders’ or executives’ personal political giving, or any legal proceedings involving the company.