The billionaire’s wealth grew by $2 trillion

Billionaire wealth soared in 2024 as the world’s richest people increasingly benefited from inheritance and powerful connections, according to Oxfam’s latest annual inequality report.

The combined wealth of the world’s richest rose from $13 trillion to $15 trillion in just 12 months, a global charity said on Sunday. This is the second largest annual increase in the wealth of billionaires since Oxfam started keeping records.

Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990, the charity reports, citing World Bank data. The data showed that the richest 1% of people own almost 45% of all wealth, while 44% of humanity lives below the World Bank’s poverty line of $6.85 a day.

As the wealth of the world’s richest people increases at a faster rate than previously predicted, Oxfam now expects at least five trillionaires to emerge within a decade.

“The capture of our global economy by a privileged few has reached heights once thought unimaginable,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.

“Failure to stop billionaires now will soon breed trillionaires. Not only the rate of accumulation of wealth of billionaires has accelerated – three times – but also their power,” he said.

The report highlights the rise of “unearned wealth”, revealing that 60% of billionaires’ wealth now comes from inheritance, monopoly or the power of “family connections”.

Oxfam’s Takers Not Makers report comes as billionaire Donald Trump returns to the White House and 3,000 leaders from more than 130 countries prepare to attend the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos.

Elon Musk, CEO of the company Tesla and a close Trump ally on the way to become the world’s first trillionaire by 2027, according to a report by Informa Connect Academy. It is currently worth around $440 billion Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows.

US President Joe Biden will leave this week warned the rise of “an oligarchy that is forming in America with extraordinary wealth, power and influence.”

“People should be able to earn as much as they can, but pay — play by the same rules, pay their fair share of taxes,” Biden said in his farewell speech.

Oxfam is calling on governments to commit to ensuring that the income of the top 10% worldwide does not exceed that of the bottom 40%. Global economic rules should be adjusted to allow the breakup of monopolies, and more corporate regulation and global tax policies should be adapted to ensure that the rich pay their share, according to the charity.

Money flowing into the bank accounts of the super-rich instead of much-needed investment in teachers and medicine is “not only bad for the economy, it’s bad for humanity,” Oxfam’s Behar said.

“A great many of the so-called ‘self-made’ are actually heirs to vast fortunes handed down through generations of unearned privilege.” A tax-free multibillion-dollar inheritance is an affront to justice, perpetuating a new aristocracy where wealth and power remain locked up in the hands of the few,” he said.