Campaigners said billionaires’ wealth soared in first month of the year by a staggering £237billion – more than the combined wealth of world’s poorest 2.8billion people
Billionaires’ wealth soared by over $300billion (£237billion) in the first month of the year alone, new research shows today.
Campaigners calling for higher taxes on the world’s super-rich said this is more than the combined wealth of the poorest 2.8billion people globally. They warned it shows the “breakneck speed” in the growth of extreme wealth.
The analysis by the #TaxTheSuperRich movement said it would take 15million workers on a global average income an entire year to collectively earn the same amount of cash.
According to the annual Forbes list, there are 2,781 billionaires across the world. Donald Trump ally and Tesla founder, Elon Musk, who now heads the new Department for Government Efficiency (Doge) in the US, tops the list.
The world’s richest man is followed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, and the boss of software giant Oracle, Lary Ellison.
Ahead of a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Cape Town, South Africa, today, campaigners are demanding the super-rich are effectively taxed. They say this will help tackle inequality while raising billions to combat poverty and the climate crisis.
Economist Jayati Ghosh said: “Extreme wealth isn’t just growing, it’s accelerating at breakneck speed, putting more and more power into the hands of a tiny few. Failure to act enables more unchecked greed and deepening disparities, allowing oligarchs to expand their vast fortunes and further extend their power over the rest of the world.”
The campaign group #TaxTheSuperRich is powered by organisations including Oxfam, Amnesty International, and Patriotic Millionaires.
Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and a former managing director at BlackRock said: “Rising and extreme inequality threatens everything we hold dear: our democracies, our economies, our planet, and our broader society.
“In our increasingly connected world, it is a global problem that requires global solutions. That’s why my group, Patriotic Millionaires, is proud to partner with over 50 international organizations in calling on G20 leaders to follow through with their commitment to cooperate in taxing the super-rich more effectively.”