The 500 richest people in the world increased by $ 1 trillion. their property in 2021

For the richest people on the planet, 2021 was a year of huge profits, extreme losses and unprecedented control.

For example, Elon Musk’s fortune skyrocketed to levels that only John D. Rockefeller had achieved. Bill Hwang lost $ 20 billion in just a few days, while Bill Gates – once the richest man in the world – had one of the most high-profile divorces of 2021.

According to Bloomberg, 2021 was mainly a good time to be a billionaire. Rising stock markets and rising valuations, from homes to cryptocurrencies and commodities, have boosted the collective wealth of the world’s 500 richest people by more than 1 trillion. dollars, even when the pandemic occupied the planet for the second year.

These gains mean that there are now 10 fortunes in excess of $ 100 billion, more than $ 200 in excess of $ 10 billion, and Musk has reached the level of inflation-adjusted wealth achieved by the richest man in modern history.

The combined net worth in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index now exceeds 8.4 trillion. dollars, a figure higher than the GDP of all countries except the US and China.

The huge fortunes of 0.001% also highlighted how the uneven recovery from the Covid-19 financial shock has been further consolidated.

As the much richer took advantage of rising markets and loose fiscal policy, the pandemic pushed up to 150 million people into extreme poverty, according to World Bank estimates, a number that is expected to rise if inflation continues to rise.

“Since the mid-1990s, the share of the wealth of the world’s richest 0.01% has grown from about 7% to 11%,” said Lucas Chancel, co-director of the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics. “The crisis has not reversed this trend. It has strengthened it slightly.”