Do you know how many zeros fit in a trillionaire? Thirteen zeros! Thirteen!!!! The idea of reaching a fortune of that level seems unimaginable to most of us who work hard to make ends meet having saved a little of our salary, many of us wouldn’t even know how to put the zeros in the account… Well now, a recent report by Oxfam has suggested that there are five lucky people whose fortunes will reach thirteen zeros before 2035. Artificial intelligence and the luxury market have led to these five people being both admired and questioned… But… is it normal that there are five people who see their fortunes grow to this level while the inequality gaps are increasingly larger? We tell you below all the admiration and the stir that has been caused by this study.
Trillionaires: the rise
As we said, it was Oxfam who brought this data to light, and it is because they were analysing the existing poverty threshold worldwide, realizing, at the time, that in one year, the wealth of these people in 2024 increased three times faster than in 2023.
12 months and the profits that these “ultra-rich” have made have been astonishing, shares in the most valuable companies in the world and developments in technologies and artificial intelligence have been the key ingredient for this success. And now, the markets are also going to experience a change with Trump’s second presidency.
What about the rest of humans?
Oxfam strongly emphasizes that economic crises and conflicts are what have perpetuated that the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990, and that is, the Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP) of the World Bank. estimated that there are 3.6 billion people living on less than $7 a day. Oxfam also criticises the current economic system as needing to change, and that equality should fall, above all, on those who have more (explaining that they are the ones who should pay more taxes to make everything more equitable).
Although it would be ideal, we already know that the higher echelons are not in favour of this…
Technology: the key point of the rise
That’s right, the three technology magnates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have each found their own way to extract gold from their own mines.
- Elon Musk. Owner of Tesla and SpaceX, he has doubled his fortune this past year due to the growing demand for sustainable technologies (and due to policies that favour electric vehicles). The man who makes “Roman salutes” in his welcome speech to Trump has become the richest man in the world.
- Musk’s wealth has grown by more than 105%, from $219 billion to $449 billion (just this past year!!)
- Jeff Bezos, you may know him as the CEO of Amazon (the largest online shopping company in the world) and now Musk’s new best friend, but his investment in AI and projects like Blue Origin keep him at the top for another year with $245 billion.
- Mark Zuckerberg: He has decided to change course and bet on AI, which bounced back 60% more in this man’s accounts. Zuckerberg has reached $217 billion.
- Jensen Huang: The figure of the ’20s, learning specialist at Informa Connect Academy, the CEO and founder of Nvidia has a wealth of $117.8 billion.
- Bernad Arnault, a luxury goods magnate (He is the chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton), currently also controls Veuve Clicquot champagne and even Tiffany diamonds. He has a fortune of 188 billion dollars.
For those who are lost, we explain what it means to be a trillionaire
Don’t be scared, but this amount of money only means having power in global decisions. They are not “presidents of the world” but they do have enough power to control resources that affect all people, and, in this capitalist system in which we live, their decisions end up modifying the market. So, evidently, these accumulations of wealth (although they shouldn’t) do influence the world economy, and therefore, in the reflection we make about the distribution of wealth, is it normal for 1% of people to accumulate 45% of the wealth?
The largest fortunes on the planet are shared between just five people, and the worst thing (for us and better for them) is that they will continue to rise in the coming years, of course, let’s hope they don’t decide to get into a submarine to find out the truth about the Titanic… And you, who also know that you will never achieve that wealth, don’t worry about your petty expenses, spend it, that’s what you’ve worked for!