It’s boom time for world’s billionaires
The number of billionaires around the world continues to grow and their wealth is increasing at an astonishing rate.
Nearly 3,000 billionaires in the world will have a combined wealth of US$18.3 trillion ($27.4 trillion) in 2025, a report published by Oxfam ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Monday said.
The anti-poverty and development organization is publishing an annual report on global inequality ahead of a meeting in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.
When adjusted for inflation, billionaires’ wealth has increased by more than 80 percent since March 2020. At the same time, Oxfam said almost half of the global population continues to live in poverty.
The report draws on data from multiple sources, including Forbes billionaire wealth estimates, World Bank figures and the UBS Global Wealth Report.
Billionaires’ wealth increased by nearly 16 percent last year; three times faster than the average growth rate in previous years.
The world’s 12 richest people now own more wealth than the poorest half of the global population, more than four billion people.
Oxfam said the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, earns in four seconds what the average person earns in a year.
Musk would need to donate more than US$4,500 ($6,738) every second for his wealth to start dwindling.
Billionaires earn an average of $6,000 ($A8,984) during a 20-minute nap and $145,000 ($A217,105) during an eight-hour night’s sleep.
This year, the forum in Davos, Switzerland, will be attended by some 65 world leaders, as well as dozens of central bank governors and finance ministers, as well as business titans – a record number.
Oxfam, one of the meeting’s staunchest critics, argues that the gathering of global elites mostly shows token commitment to the problems of the poor.
Oxfam also warned that growing economic power among billionaires, particularly in the US, was increasingly translating into political influence and was eroding democratic systems.
Forbes recently wrote that US President Donald Trump “has presided over the most lucrative presidency in American history” and has added billions of dollars to his net worth, largely through his cryptocurrency ventures.
Trump is leading the largest-ever U.S. delegation to Davos and is scheduled to address the conference on Wednesday.
Oxfam’s report said 100 billionaire families spent a record US$2.6 billion ($3.9 billion) during the latest US presidential election campaign.
The report also raised concerns about global media concentration, writing that “more than half of the world’s largest media companies have billionaire owners, and nine of the world’s 10 largest social media companies are run by just six billionaires.”
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