Are billionaires becoming poor? 590 rich folks kicked off the Forbes list
An unbelievable historical turning point has occurred on the world financial map! The Forbes magazine's new ranking of the 400 richest Americans shocked everyone: as many as 590 magnates whose wealth amounts to billions of dollars failed to make it onto the elite list because they turned out to be "too poor" for today's standards.
At a time when the 20 richest Americans have captured a whopping 50 percent of total wealth on Forbes, Elon Musk showed a result that leaves the economies of entire nations in the dust. So, how did Musk's wealth reach nearly a trillion dollars, and why are Nobel laureates calling this a terrible threat to democracy?
Even 4.4 billion dollars was not enough: The new elite criterion
According to RFM radio station and USA Today, stratification among billionaires has never deepened to this extent in history:
"Poor" billionaires: 590 American billionaires failed to fit into the top 400 richest people list;
Entry ticket: The wealth threshold to enter the ranking must exceed at least $4.4 billion (34 new faces joined the list this year);
Top-20 monopoly: The 20 richest citizens of the US alone own half (50%) of the total capital on this prestigious list.
Elon Musk's trillion-dollar fortress
"Elon Musk took first place on this list for the fifth consecutive year. Following SpaceX's impressive IPO, the net worth of Tesla and SpaceX's owners was estimated at approximately $900 billion. This is an amount equal to Switzerland's annual GDP! According to Newsweek calculations, Musk has become the world's first trillioner, and his wealth is twice that of the legendary John D. Rockefeller."
Professor David Lee Williams noted that Musk's wealth makes up 3 percent of the entire US GDP — which means 5 million times more than the average wealth of a regular American family. If this trillion dollars were stacked on top of each other in cash bills, the height would exceed 1,000 kilometers!
Top-10 billionaires: Who has how much?
Rank | Billionaire | Field of activity / Main assets | Wealth (in billion dollars) |
1 | Elon Musk | ~900 bln $ (trillionaire) | |
2 | Jeff Bezos | Amazon, Blue Origin | 378 bln $ |
3 | Larry Page | Google / Alphabet | 278 bln $ |
4 | Michael Dell | Dell Technologies | 263 bln $ |
5 | Sergey Brin | Google / Alphabet | 256 bln $ |
6 | Mark Zuckerberg | Meta | 212 bln $ |
7 | Larry Ellison | Oracle | 204 bln $ |
8 | Jensen Huang | Nvidia | 199 bln $ |
9 | Steve Ballmer | Former head of Microsoft | 156 bln $ |
10 | Warren Buffett | Berkshire Hathaway | 144 bln $ |
"The new oligarchy and the fall of democracy": Economists sound the alarm
The concentration of this level of power in the hands of a few individuals is causing great concern in scientific circles:
"Billionaires in the US have never possessed this much money and power before, and their influence in the media has reached an unprecedented level. This immense wealth and influence pose a serious threat to open democracy," warns Nobel laureate Professor Paul Krugman.
It remains questionable whether America, once said to have "equal opportunities for all," is now turning into a new oligarchic regime ruled by a few super-rich.
In your opinion, isn't it dangerous for the world that wealth exceeding even the budget of a state like Switzerland is accumulated in the hands of a single person? Should stricter wealth taxes be introduced for billionaires?
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