World's richest see fortunes double since 2020 while global inequality increases

The two richest Irish billionaires have more wealth than the bottom half of the population - Oxfam

Elon Musk's net worth is now estimated to be approximately $230bn.

The fortune of the five richest men in the world has doubled since 2020 while five billion people were made poorer in that time, a new report from charity Oxfam has found.

The five richest men in the world include Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla and owner of X formerly known as Twitter; Bernard Arnault, chief executive of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH; Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Larry Elison of Oracle, and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta.

According to the poverty charity’s analysis, these five men more than doubled their fortunes from $405bn (€369.6bn) to $869bn (€793bn) over the last four years. Oxfam is predicting that the world’s first ever trillionaire is just a decade away while it would take 229 years to end poverty.

The report said that for most people the years since 2020 have “been incredibly hard” due to the pandemic, escalating conflicts, rising cost of living and the acceleration of climate change.

“Poverty in the poorest countries is still higher than it was in 2019. Worldwide, prices are outpacing pay, meaning hundreds of millions of people are struggling to make their earnings stretch further each month,” the report said.

“The sharp increase in the cost of food and other essentials that began in 2021 has become a grinding new reality for many families across the world as they try to buy oil, bread or flour without knowing how much they can afford this time, or how hungry they and their children will have to go today.” 

The report also shows that seven of the 10 biggest corporations in the world have a billionaire chief executive or principal shareholder. 

These corporations are worth a combined $10.2tr (€9.76tr) which is the equivalent to more than the combined GDPs of all countries in Africa and Latin America.

Ireland's richest

In Ireland in particular, the report states the two richest Irish billionaires have more wealth than the bottom half of the population. The richest 1% in Ireland hold 35.4% of Irish financial wealth.

Oxfam Ireland is calling on the Government to tax extreme wealth stating that a progressive wealth tax on Irish millionaires and billionaires could generate up to €9.2bn a year.

It is also calling for the closure of tax loopholes citing an Oireachtas Budget Oversight Committee report which said it could bring in an additional €7.1bn.

The report is published as the World Economic Forum kicks off today in Davos, Switzerland.

Amitabh Behar, interim executive director of Oxfam International, said the fortunes of billionaires “boom” while billions of people shoulder the economic shockwaves of pandemic, inflation, and war.