CNN
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Move over billionaires. The first trillionaires are on their way.
Five people are expected to amass at least $1 trillion in wealth within the next decade if current trends continue, according to Oxfam’s annual inequality report released on Sunday. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, currently the world’s richest person worth more than $430 billion, should cross the line in just under five years.
He will soon be joined by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault and family.
Oxfam’s report, which is based on data compiled by Forbes, is timed to coincide with the start of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, an elite gathering of some of the world’s richest people and leaders. Its release also comes a day before the inauguration of billionaire president-elect Donald Trump.
2024 was a very profitable year for the world’s wealthiest individuals and families, driven in part by the rise in the US stock market, Oxfam found. Their net worth expanded so quickly that Oxfam revised its estimate from last year that just one trillionaire would be crowned in the next decade.
“This is an unimaginable amount,” said Rebecca Riddell, senior policy director at Oxfam America, of the $1 trillion. “This extreme inequality is nothing to celebrate.”
The ranks of the billionaire class last year grew by just over 200 to nearly 2,770 people. Their wealth grew by $2.1 trillion – three times faster than a year earlier – to a total of $15 trillion. In the United States alone, where 816 billionaires reside, the net worth of this group increased by $1.4 trillion.
Furthermore, if any of the 10 richest people lost 99% of their wealth, they would still be a billionaire, Oxfam found.
Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty is about the same as it was in 1990, according to the report, citing World Bank data.
This year’s Oxfam report, titled Takers not Makers, also points out that more than a third of billionaires’ wealth is inherited. In 2023, more billionaires amassed their wealth through inheritance than through entrepreneurship for the first time. Plus, all 17 billionaires under 30 passed on their fortunes.
This transfer of assets is aided by the fact that two-thirds of countries do not tax inheritance to direct descendants, Riddell said. And in the United States, the wealth tax has been destroyed by tax cuts and strategies to avoid it.
“Unchecked, we are poised to see the largest generational transfer of wealth in human history – hard-earned and hard-taxed – unless we act,” she said, adding that Oxfam is calling on governments to ensure that the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
The wealthy are also exerting more and more influence over politics. Case in point, Oxfam says, is the incoming Trump administration. She is credited with nearly a dozen people worth at least $1 billion alone or with their spouses, making her one of the richest in history.
Musk, who pumped more than $260 million into Trump’s 2024 campaign, is serving as a top adviser to the president-elect and co-heading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
“Musk and the tremendous influence he has over politics and policy is truly emblematic of the unchecked power of billionaires that has come to define our economic and political system,” Riddell said.
In his farewell speech from the Oval Office last week, President Joe Biden warned of the concentration of power among a “very few ultra-rich people.”
“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America with extreme wealth, power and influence that threatens literally all of our democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair chance for everyone to get ahead,” he said.
