Just eight billionaires accounted for a quarter of the gains, led by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison and Larry Page

Just eight billionaires accounted for a quarter of the gains, led by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison and Larry Page

The richest 500 individuals in the world added a record $2.2tn to their wealth in 2025, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with just eight billionaires accounting for a quarter of the gains.

The gains increased their collective net worth to $11.9tn, bolstered by billionaire Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory and booming markets in cryptocurrencies, equities and metals.

Around a quarter of the gains were attributed to eight billionaires, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Oracle chair Larry Ellison and Alphabet Inc co-founder Larry Page, though 2024 saw more concentrated net worth gains with the same eight billionaires making up 43% of total net worth gains for the wealthiest 500 individuals in the world.

  • Mulligrubs@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    1 day ago

    Government is our only defense against robber barons. If any government allows itself to be controlled by billionaires, there’s NO REASON for the government. It’s just a super expensive middleman.

  • fonix232@fedia.io
    1031·
    2 days ago

    “Added” my ass. They STOLE $2.2tn from the working people. They literally took it out from the mouths of starving families, struggling single mothers and fathers, while providing little to no value for all their greed.

  • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
    11·
    2 days ago

    And how much did they contribute back to the countries that allowed them to amass that ridiculous amount of wealth?

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
    9·
    2 days ago

    So when are we finally going to stop this, stop the billionaires?

    We need laws that put hard caps on ownership and personal wealth. Nobody should be able to have a net worth of over, say, 10 million dollars. Any income over that should be taxed 100% until the person goes below the 10 million line

    We done even need different economic systems, capitalism works well to generate wealth, that is fine, we just need to put rules on where that wealth goes.

    With taxes, that is a simple fix.

    Imagine if you will, if nobody can be worth over 10M, and companies het similarly capped at, say, 1 billion.

    You have a company worth 1 billion? You can’t have a single owner because of the 10M cap. You’ll end up with many ay more smaller companies or bigger companies with loads of small share holders. Companies can compete and grow but the perverse incentives of endless growth would be gone. Companies can finally focus on the end consumers again, and make better products

    Meanwhile governments get a huge tax influx, that can be used to fund independent investment foundations that help new startups with funding and professional help to get your new company started

    That tax money could be used as well to fund free healthcare, free education, maybe even universal income. We could eradicate the poor.

    People could stop focusing on survival and start focusing on living and loving.

    I dunno, there are loads of details missing, of course, but this sounds like something doable.

  • paperazzi@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 day ago

    That’s nothing. In 2026 they’ll at least double that, guaranteed.

    What’s the number after trillion? Might as well find out soon because there is no stopping the greed juggernaut.

  • wickedrando@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4·
    1 day ago

    It’s incredible they all work so hard while also shit posting 24/7 and dressing like trash.

  • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    391·
    2 days ago

    At this point reality needs a maximum high score. Like, you make $100 billion and the arguments about taxes just stop, you just literally do not make any more money, because why.

    What good society would allow this? When seen what it is - literally human life turned into currency through effort - I find it hard to explain letting one person horde this much without using the word “evil.”

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 day ago

      I think this is exactly why the likes of Thiel stroke off to things like the book The Sovereign Individual. Or get giddy when they hear the ramblings of that idiot Curtis Yarvin.

      They imagine a world where they can put their wealth entirely beyond the reach of anyone, no matter what. They think that government is just about buying protection/services at the lowest cost in order to preserve wealth, and they should pay nothing above that.

      That’s the basic thrust of The Sovereign Individual, really - that the wealthy “creatives” LOL are having all their gains stolen to support people that are just unworthy and they are paying way too much to the “welfare state”, etc. The “sovereign individual” should be able to pick up their money and go anywhere that is willing to offer up their “services” at the very lowest cost, and with things like digital currency, no nasty governments should be able to get at that money - ironically, these people are basically talking about “open borders”, but only for the very high-performing people, the people they naturally assume are themselves, of course. Everyone else should be stuck in increasingly failed high-tax welfare states where there is no one else to “exploit” by taxation, etc…

      They live in constant fear that a population may actually wake the fuck up, and actually elect people that can do something about all those ill-gotten gains and undue influence and dream about a scenario where they can just float wherever and no one is allowed to touch their precious.