GNV News — December 13, 2024

UBS, the Swiss bank and one of the world’s largest asset managers, announced that over the past decade the total wealth of the world’s billionaires has increased by 121%, from $6.3 trillion to $14 trillion. Over the same period, the number of billionaires (individuals with assets of $1 billion or more) increased from 1,757 to 2,682. In North America in particular, billionaire-led wealth gains in the industrial and high-tech sectors were notable, accounting for more than 40% of global billionaire wealth in 2024. Billionaire wealth has been growing especially rapidly in the technology industry, which helped drive the generative AI boom, and is expected to triple from $788.9 billion in 2015 to $2.4 trillion in 2024. Market concentration is spreading across many industries, and through corporate governance and monopolization, billionaires who are major shareholders and CEOs of giant corporations have further expanded their power.

Meanwhile, since 2020, about 4.8 billion people—around 60% of the world’s population—have become poorer, and for the first time in 25 years the gap between the Global South and the Global North has widened. Profits of giant corporations have been concentrated among shareholders and owners, while consumers face rising prices and workers face stagnant wages. In addition, according to research by the international NGO Oxfam, at least 90% of the 164 countries surveyed have implemented policies or actions that could exacerbate economic inequality, such as lowering corporate tax rates. We have entered an era of unprecedented monopoly power in which giant corporations exert great influence over markets and daily life, and the normalization of widening extreme inequality is viewed as dangerous.

Learn more about the world’s wealthy → “Billionaires: Questioning Their Existence”

Learn more about the Caribbean’s wealthy → “The Caribbean and the Super-Rich”

Learn more about global inequality → “Why Don’t the Media Report on Surging Global Inequality?”

A billionaire’s yacht (Photo: Ryan McGill / Shutterstock.com)