The five wealthiest people on the planet are 114% wealthier today than they were in 2020, according to a recent report from Oxfam International.
The same report predicts, that on current trend, we will see the world's first trillionaire within a decade.
There's a reasonable chance the world's first trillionnaire will be one of the current five richest men, so that means one of...
- Elon Musk - $226 BN
- Bernard Arnault and family - $175 BN
- Jeff Bezos - $173 BN
- Larry Elliot - $134 BN
- Warren Buffet - $119 BN.
Of course it may be some other upstart/ newstart who comes out of nowhere... Given the increasing rate of change, that wouldn't surprise me either.
But of course there is still a VERY long way to go for even Musk to to make it to that next 000. So will anyone ever get there...?
Will spunking $40BN on X make him richer...?
Potential Barriers to TrillionaireDom....
The first is that there is further to go for any of the above than they've come already.... Even Musk has to four times his wealth from this point, adding on another > $750 Billion to his stash, and even further for the rest.
Moving into this sort of growth is new territory - it would probably require as much luck as skill and knowledge to be able to Vest and keep growing at the same level these guys have done over the past decade or so. More likely diversifying, as that's probably what it would take to get to 1 TRN, could not work out.
One has to wonder whether any of them care that much about the $1 Trillion goal... or whether anyone does...? I mean Musk is prepared to spunk $44 billion or whatever it was on X, and that seemed about ego as much as money. Assuming these people don't want to get rich to influence politics or throw it all away on war, it's going to be easier to just give it away than try to increase it.
Another barrier is anti-monopoly regulation by various governments - Amazon is already on the radar, and I can't imagine the USA allowing someone like Musk a monopoly over commercial space flight.
There's also the possibility of the world coming to its senses and increasing wealth taxes. I mean possibly it's not healthy letting so few people control so much wealth....?
And then there's competition of course... new techs and smaller start-ups could chip away at profits of any of these guys, and possibly consumers who can afford it would choose these to diversify rather than making the rich richer.
We can also rule Buffet out as he'll probably be dead before be gets there.
So in conclusion, I doubt very much we'll ever see a trillionaire! More likely is more billionnaires and multi-millionnaires.