WEF 2025: Billionaire wealth surged three times faster in 2024, shows Oxfam report

WEF 2025: Billionaire wealth rose three times faster last year, as per a new report. Even if the world’s 10 richest people lost 99% of their wealth overnight, they would still remain billionaires, it said. The report also sought past colonial powers to address past harms with reparations. 

According to a report titled 'Takers, not Makers', released by Oxfam International on the first day of the World Economic Forum annual meeting where the richest of the world assemble every year for their annual jamboree, billionaire wealth across the globe surged by $2 trillion in 2024 to $15 trillion. 

Key takeaways from Oxfam’s inequity report: 

• While there was a huge jump in billionaire wealth, the number of people living in poverty barely changed since 1990. 
• Wealth of Asian billionaires increased by $299 billion in 2024.
• It predicted that there would be at least five trillionaires within a decade from now.
• Last year, 204 new billionaires were minted, an average of nearly four every week.
• Asia got 41 new billionaires in 2024. 
• The richest 1 per cent in the Global North extracted $30 million an hour from the Global South through the financial systems in 2023.  
• Global North countries control 69 per cent of global wealth, 77 per cent of billionaire wealth and are home to 68 per cent of billionaires, but make up just 21 per cent of the global population.
• The report stated that 60 per cent of billionaire wealth is now derived from inheritance, monopoly power or crony connections. “Extreme billionaire wealth is largely unmerited,” it said.
• Billionaires’ wealth grew at an average of $5.7 billion a day in 2024.
• The wealth of the world's 10 richest men grew on average by almost $100 million a day.
• Even if the world’s 10 richest men lost 99 per cent of their wealth overnight, they would remain billionaires, Oxfam said.
• It said that 36 per cent of billionaire wealth is now inherited.

The rights group urged governments to tax the richest to reduce inequality, end extreme wealth and dismantle the new aristocracy. It also sought former colonial powers to address past harms. "Many of the super-rich, particularly in Europe, owe part of their wealth to historical colonialism and the exploitation of poorer countries," Oxfam said. The report added that unlike popular perception, billionaire wealth is largely unearned.  

"The capture of our global economy by a privileged few has reached heights once considered unimaginable. The failure to stop billionaires is now spawning soon-to-be trillionaires. Not only has the rate of billionaire wealth accumulation accelerated – by three times – but so too has their power," Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar said.

"The crown jewel of this oligarchy is a billionaire president, backed and bought by the world's richest man Elon Musk, running the world's largest economy. We present this report as a stark wake up-call that ordinary people the world over are being crushed by the enormous wealth of a tiny few," he said.