Oxfam: World’s five richest men Musk, Buffett, Bezos, Ellison Arnault doubled wealth since 2020

The five richest people in the world doubled their combined net worth from $405 billion to $869 billion in just over three years, a new Oxfam International report shows. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffett, and Bernard Arnault (including his family) all topped the list of the world’s richest people whose net worth skyrocketed from March 2020 to November 2023.  

During the same time period, the collective wealth of the poorest 60% of the world’s population—approximately 4.8 billion people—fell 0.2%, which, while a small percentage, illustrates the divergent trends for the rich and the poor. Things get drastically better for those with money and marginally worse for this without it.  

If the fortunes of the wealthiest individuals continue to grow at their current pace, the world could see its first trillionaire in the next 10 years, the report projects. But Oxfam predicts it would take 229 years for global poverty to be eliminated, defined as reducing the number of people earning $6.85 a day to less than 1% globally.

Oxfam’s report comes as the world’s wealthiest people, highest powered executives, and ranking politicians meet in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum.

“These extremes cannot be accepted as the new norm, the world can’t afford another decade of division,” Oxfam interim CEO Aleema Shivji said in a statement accompanying the report. 

The timing of the report draws a stark contrast between the trajectories of the world’s wealthiest and the world’s poorest—highlighting the continued problem of wealth inequality, which gained new urgency following the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011. The movement popularized the term “the 1%,” making it a catchall term for the world’s richest people. 

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