From $700bn to $1.5tn, world’s 10 richest men doubled their fortunes during Covid
PARIS: The world’s 10 wealthiest men doubled their fortunes during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic as poverty and inequality soared, a report said on Monday.
Oxfam said the men’s wealth jumped from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion, at an average rate of $1.3 billion per day, in a briefing published before a mini-summit of world leaders being held under the auspices of the World Economic Forum.
A confederation of charities that focus on alleviating global poverty, Oxfam said the billionaires’ wealth rose more during the pandemic more than it did the previous 14 years, when the world economy was suffering the worst recession since the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
It called this inequality “economic violence” and said inequality is contributing to the death of 21,000 people every day due to a lack of access to healthcare, gender-based violence, hunger and climate change.
The pandemic has plunged 160 million people into poverty, the charity added.
The group said it based its wealth calculations on the most up-to-date and comprehensive data sources available, and used the 2021 Billionaires List compiled by the US business magazine Forbes.
Forbes listed the world’s 10 richest men as: Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Facebook’s
Mark Zuckerberg, former Microsoft CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, former Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, US investor Warren Buffet and the head of the French luxury group LVMH, Bernard Arnault.
India’s richest have more than doubled their fortunes during the Covid-19 crisis that’s ravaged the country and worsened poverty, and the government should revisit its policies to redistribute wealth, the report said.
The nation added 40 billionaires to 142 last year, when a second wave of infections overwhelmed its health infrastructure and pushed crematoriums and burial grounds to breaking point. They have almost $720 billion in combined fortune, more than the poorest 40% of the population, the group.