Last Year, Assets of the World's Top 500 Richest Increased by 1,188 Trillion Won

▲Elon Musk, the world's richest person and CEO of Tesla [Image source=Reuters News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] The assets of the world's top 500 billionaires increased by approximately $1 trillion (about 1,188 trillion KRW) in just the past year.

On the 4th (local time), CNN Business, citing the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, reported that the total assets of the world's top 500 billionaires surpassed $8.4 trillion (about 9,979 trillion KRW), an increase of about $1 trillion compared to last year.

CNN Business stated, "This amount is larger than the gross domestic product (GDP) of any country except the United States and China."

In contrast, the United Nations estimated that 150 million people worldwide were pushed below the poverty line last year.

The billionaire whose assets increased the most last year was Elon Musk, CEO of the American electric vehicle company Tesla. His asset increase last year reached $118 billion (about 140 trillion KRW). Musk is also the world's richest person.

Other billionaires with significant asset growth last year include Bernard Arnault, chairman of the French fashion group Louis Vuitton Mo?t Hennessy (LVMH) ($62.7 billion), and Google founders Larry Page ($47 billion) and Sergey Brin ($45 billion).

Although social media company Facebook had a nightmarish year last year due to whistleblower revelations, CEO Mark Zuckerberg's assets increased by $25 billion (about 29.7 trillion KRW).

CNN Business pointed out, "This astronomical asset growth among the top 0.001% of the world highlights the severe wealth gap between workers, executives, and major shareholders," adding, "These billionaires should be thanking the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed)."

This is because the Fed's maintenance of ultra-low interest rates and implementation of quantitative easing policies allowed massive liquidity to flow into financial markets, enabling a stock market boom.

The U.S. stock market's Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 index rose about 27% last year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased about 19%, and the Nasdaq index went up about 21%.

CNN Business reported that the so-called "billionaire tax" pushed in the U.S. Congress last year was mocked by billionaires like Musk.

The billionaire tax is a system that imposes a minimum 20% tax rate on unrealized gains from assets such as stocks and bonds, targeting the wealthiest individuals.

The Democratic Party attempted to pass the billionaire tax last year to fund the implementation of the Joe Biden administration's social infrastructure bill but failed.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.