Billionaire Downtown: The Richest People just got Richer

The last week of August saw the most lucrative turns in economic history for the world’s wealthiest people.

In the first time in history, the net worth of Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon Inc, for the first time crossed the unimaginable amount of $200 billion. On the other hand, the inventor, the provocateur, the entrepreneur Elon Musk became richer when his fortune exponentially went over $100 billion fueled by Tesla Inc.’s ceaseless rally. As a result, by Friday, the world’s 500 wealthiest people in the world became $209 billion richer than what they were a week ago.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla

Musk’s sudden increase in his vast wealth, led him to be a part of the exclusive group of centi billionaires which consists of only four members: co-founder Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg – third richest person, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and, lastly, of course, Jeff Bezos. The total net worth of all of these four centi billionaires exceeds a total of $540 billion. 

These recent booms in the personal fortunes of the richest of the rich came in the last week of August alone. This major growth was greatly driven by surging markets, mostly caused by tech shares. Due to the Federal Reserve’s different inflation approach in the United States, stocks reached new highs on Friday in the last week of August as investors became confident of their trades.

Pay Package

Due to Tesla’s stock price and an incremented valuation of Space Exploration Technology, commonly known as SpaceX, Elon Musk’s net worth has increased by $76.1 billion this year. Another important note: an audacious pay package, the highest corporate payment agreement ever made between the board of directors and CEO, could eventually yield more than $50 billion given that all requirements and goals are perfectly met. 

Therefore, Elon Musk was also able to unlock the gigantic $2.1 billion prize since Tesla hit the milestone. 

Despite Elon’s drastic increase in wealth, it still comes after Jeff Bezos, who, during the pandemic lockdown, has been able to grow at an exponential rate by $84.9 billion since customers for online shopping increased and Amazon deliveries successfully exploited that opportunity. Since late 2017, when Bezos touched the $100 billion benchmark, he has successfully doubled his worth, even after ceding a quarter of his Amazon stake to ex-wife MacKenzie Scott in their divorce last year.

In the same way, Scott is now only $700 million shy of surpassing L’Oreal SA heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, currently the world’s richest woman. 

The heady transformation and pace of wealth upgrading and accumulation stands in absolute contrast when compared with the state of the global economy. Growth has decreased rapidly since the pandemic began, as the lockdown forced the shut downs of markets, with companies and businesses laying off workers and employees while consumer demand fell drastically.

Income Inequality

The sudden shock of economic distress and pain was majorly borne by young and lower-wage workers, mainly unskilled, whose jobs were vulnerable to Covid-related layoffs and downsizing. 

“There is little doubt that the pandemic will exacerbate inequality in incomes and wealth, both in the short term and in the longer term,” said Miles Corak, a well known and renowned economics professor who specifically studies income inequality at the Graduate Center of the City under the University of New York.

Just this year, despite the global lockdown and health emergency and the economy being in a slump, the world’s five hundred richest people alone have been able to grow with a total of $871 billion this year, which is a 15% increase, according to the billionaires index.

Read More: No publicity is bad publicity: Gucci and the blackface scandal