Billionaires' wealth soared in 2024, a top anti-poverty group said ahead of an annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland of some of the world's political and financial elite.

Move over billionaires. The first trillionaires are on their way.

At current trends the charity Oxfam predicts up to five trillionaires are expected to emerge within the next decade.

Behar said the planet's five richest people — Tesla CEO Elon Musk, LVMH owner Bernard Arnault, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and investor Warren Buffett — have seen their fortunes increase by 114 percent since 2020, and the prospect of someone amassing $1,000 billion — a trillion — is now very real.

There is increasing disparity in the world today as an "aristocratic oligarchy" is amassing wealth at unforeseen levels, a report published by development organization Oxfam said. Published ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos,

Costs should be borne by the richest, who benefited the most from colonialism, says charity

Billionaire wealth across the globe surged by USD 2 trillion in 2024 to USD 15 trillion at a rate three times faster than the previous year, a study showed on Monday here as the richest of the world began to assemble for their annual jamboree in this ski resort town.

The UK extracted $64.82 trillion from India over a century of colonialism between 1765 and 1900 and $33.8 trillion of this went to the richest 10 per cent — enough money to carpet the surface area of London in notes of 50 British pound almost four times over.

Oxfam's latest report shows billionaire wealth surged by $2 trillion in 2024, with new billionaires minted daily. Discover how wealth inequality is widening globally.

On money extracted from India by the UK during over 100 years of colonialism between 1765 and 1900, Oxfam said that beyond the richest, the main beneficiaries of colonialism were the newly emergent middle class.

Oxfam Nigeria, a non-profit organisation, has warned that the wealth gap in Nigeria has reached crisis levels, with 70 percent of the population experiencing hunger.