According to The Guardian, the key factors of this growth were the victory of Donald Trump in the US elections in 2024, but also the strong rise of the cryptocurrency, stock and metal markets.
It is particularly interesting that almost a quarter of the total growth is concentrated in just eight billionaires, among them Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Alphabet co-founder Larry Page.
However, a year earlier, wealth flowed even faster towards the very top, when the same group accounted for as much as 43 percent of the total growth in assets of the 500 richest.
Larry Ellison increased his wealth by 57.7 billion dollars during the year 2025, reaching a total of 249.8 billion. The absolute record holder is Elon Musk, whose net worth increased by as much as 190.3 billion dollars, to a total of 622.7 billion.
Great growth was also recorded by Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart, whose wealth almost tripled – from 12.6 to 37.7 billion dollars – thanks to investments in rare metals.
Although most of the richest made a profit, there were also those who suffered serious losses. The biggest drop was recorded by Filipino billionaire Manuel Villar, who lost $12.6 billion.
His assets fell to about $10 billion after shares in his company, Golden MV Holdings Inc, plunged as much as 80 percent at the end of a six-month trading suspension.
The non-governmental organization Oxfam puts these data in a wider social context, stating that the amount of 2.2 trillion dollars – how much the richest earned in one year – would be enough to lift as many as 3.8 billion people out of poverty.
Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar warned that these figures clearly indicate the extent of global inequality.
“Inequality is the result of conscious political decisions. While wealth at the top is hitting records, public wealth is stagnating or declining, and the debt crisis is deepening,” Behar said.
(Vijesti.ba)
