usatoday24
2024 was a year especially good for big fortunes in which, except some exceptionsall increased their assets. This growth trend has changed the forecasts regarding the idea that, in the next ten years, one of these billionaires will become a billionaire, accumulating wealth in excess of a trillion dollars.
According to a report that Oxfam Intemón has presented during the Davos Summit 2025the accumulation of wealth has become so extreme that the forecast now is that up to five billionaires will exceed that trillion-dollar ceiling in the next ten years.
Fortunes accelerate. According to Oxfam Intermón, previous forecasts that a person could reach a fortune exceeding one trillion dollars (European trillion, not American), have become obsolete following the rapid growth rate recorded by large fortunes during 2024.
The humanitarian organization highlights that, during the fiscal year 2024, large fortunes tripled the rate of increase in your assets with respect to 2023. According to data from Oxfam Intermón“in 2024, the number of billionaires was already 2,769, compared to 2,565 the previous year, and their combined wealth increased from 13 to 15 trillion dollars in just 12 months. This is the second largest increase in the combined wealth of billionaires in a single year, since records have been kept”.
The year of AI and the space race. This accelerated growth of the largest fortunes is mainly due to two important factors: the rise in the development of AI and the beginning of private space race. In the heat of the development of AI, the fortunes of some of its protagonists have increased, such as meteoric rise of Jensen Huang to the top of the millionaire lists, of Larry Ellison or of Mark Zuckerberg.
The space race has two proper names: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Both millionaires have placed their aerospace companies among the best valued, and the contracts with NASA They have provided them with a good financial cushion. The case of Bezos and Musk is especially notable because both millionaires “play both sides” because their companies They are also at the forefront of AI development.
Trump’s victory has influenced. The Oxfam Intermón report noted that “this growing concentration of wealth is possible thanks to a monopolistic concentration of power, in which billionaires exercise more and more influence over industries and public opinion.”
The victory of Donald Trump and the closing of the ranks of big technology companies supporting the new president has been another important factor in the increase in the forecast that up to five billionaires will exceed one trillion dollars in the next decade. The now president of the United States has demonstrated it in his first decreeslegislating for prioritize interests of these companies around the world and, therefore, boosting the fortunes of their founders and CEOs.
Elon Musk was already a candidate. With a fortune of $432.6 billion, Elon Musk is currently the richest person in the world, according to the list of millionaires of Forbes. As such, he already appeared in all the pools as a candidate to be one of the first billionaires in history.
The businessman of South African origin beat a double record at the end of 2024: he managed to surpass the threshold of $400 billion and did so by almost doubling his fortune in just two months.
Added to these estimates is the foreseeable growth in the assets of Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison or Jensen Huang, before a deregulated scene in which the large corporations on which their fortunes are based will have fewer legal restrictions on expanding.
Image | Meta, Blue Origin, Flickr (Government of India)
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