World's Billionaires' Wealth to Increase by $2024 Trillion in 2

The wealth of the world’s billionaires increased by $2 trillion last year, three times faster than in 2023, reaching $5,7 billion per day, according to a report by Oxfam International.

The charity's latest inequality report reveals the world is on track to reach five trillionaires in a decade, a change from last year's estimate of one trillionaire in 10 years.

The report, titled Takers Not Makers, comes as many of the world's political leaders, business executives and the super-rich travel to the Swiss ski resort of Davos for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, which begins today.

Oxfam’s review of billionaire assets comes as Donald Trump takes office as US president. He is expected to include several billionaires, including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, in his team of close advisers and offer large-scale tax breaks to the wealthiest US citizens.

At the same time, the number of people living below the World Bank’s poverty line of $6,85 a day has barely changed since 1990, at close to 3,6 billion, or 44 percent of the world’s population today. One in 10 women lives in extreme poverty (less than $2,15 a day), meaning 24,3 million more women than men live in extreme poverty.

Oxfam has warned that progress in reducing poverty has stalled and that extreme poverty could end three times faster if inequality is reduced.

Rising stock values ​​on global stock markets account for most of the increase in billionaire wealth, but higher property values ​​have also played a role. Residential property accounts for around 80 percent of investments worldwide.

Globally, the number of billionaires increased by 204 last year to 2. Their combined wealth has skyrocketed from $769 trillion to $12 trillion in just 13 months. The world’s 15 richest men are growing their wealth by an average of almost $10 million a day, and would remain billionaires even if they lost 100 percent of their wealth overnight.

Among them is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Bezos has a net worth of $219,4 billion, and his Amazon “empire” accounts for 70 percent or more of online purchases in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Spain. Aliko Dangote, with a net worth of $11 billion, is Africa’s richest person and has a “near-monopoly” on cement in Nigeria, dominating the market across Africa, according to the report.

The report argues that most wealth is taken, not earned, as 60 per cent of it comes from inheritance, “cronyism and corruption” or monopoly power. It estimates that 18 per cent of wealth comes from monopoly power.

According to Forbes' real-time billionaires list, the richest people in the world are Musk; Bezos; Facebook and Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerberg; Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison; and LVMH founder Bernard Arnault. Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg are expected to sit side by side at Trump's inauguration on Monday, in a sign of the rapidly growing influence of tech companies on politics.

Oxfam is calling for bold solutions to “radically reduce inequality and embed justice in our economies.”

Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s head of inequality policy, said: “Last year we predicted the first trillionaire could emerge within a decade, but this shocking acceleration of wealth means the world is now heading towards at least five years. With nearly half of humanity still living in poverty, the global economic system that has enabled and sustained this explosion of wealth is broken and completely unfit for purpose.”