Pandemic has hit us a lot, not just health-wise but financially too. However, the wealth of the world’s 10 richest men doubled during the pandemic, Oxfam says. According to the report, lower incomes for the world’s poorest contributed to the deaths of 21,000 people every day. However, since March 2020, the world’s ten wealthiest men have more than doubled their fortunes.
At the start of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Oxfam usually publishes a report on global inequality. Thousands of business and political leaders, celebrities, campaigners typically attend the event. However, the emergence of the Omicron variant derailed plans to return to an in-person event for the second year in a row, the meeting (scheduled for this week) will be online-only for the second year in a row.
Musk’s fortune increased by more than 1,000 percent
The pandemic’s likely future path, vaccine equity, and energy transition will be among the top topics of discussion. Oxfam GB’s chief executive, Danny Sriskandarajah, said the charity timed the document each year to coincide with Davos to capture the attention of the world’s economic, business, and political leaders. “This year, what’s happening is off the scale,” he said. “There’s been a new billionaire almost every day during this pandemic. Meanwhile, 99% of the world’s population are worse off because of lockdowns, lower international trade, less international tourism, and as a result of that, 160 million more people have been pushed into poverty.”
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault, and his family, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg. Steve Ballmer and Warren Buffet are among the world’s ten wealthiest men, according to Forbes figures cited by the charity. While their integrated wealth boosted from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion, there was considerable deviation between them. Musk’s fortune increased by more than 1,000 percent while Gates’ increased by only 30%.