Inequality soars as 500 richest people add £1.2 trillion to wealth in 2024

Elon Musk is the world’s richest person at the moment

The 500 richest people in the world now have more than £8 trillion in net worth. Their wealth increased by £1.2 trillion in 2024, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index revealed this week.

Tech barons Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jensen Huang were in the top three after speculation on the United States stock market increased their fortunes.

Musk, who owns X, Tesla, SpaceX and other companies, raked in billions thanks to his support for president-elect Donald Trump.

The “value” of Musk’s companies on the stock market rose sharply after Trump’s victory in the US presidential election last November. 

Trump promises big business the two things it most wanted—tax cuts and deregulation. And Musk swiftly bagged a job in the incoming administration as head of a new agency tasked with slashing regulation of big business.

Musk’s wealth is up £170 billion from the beginning of last year to an unprecedented £355 billion. On the average wage of a nurse in the NHS, you would have to work for over 10 million years to accumulate this.

He is using it to back Trump in the US and Nigel Farage and the far right Reform UK party in Britain. 

The eight runners up—including Amazon boss Jeff Bezos—raked in more than £483 billion in the last year. They accounted for around 43 percent of the total increase in the wealth of 500 richest people.

Billionaires claim that they are “innovators” whose wealth is down to their “risk taking”.

But Musk has relied on state intervention to get Tesla and SpaceX on the road. Daniel Ives, tech analyst for the Wedbush Securities financial firm, said, “The foundation for Musk’s financial success has been the US government.” 

Space X has grabbed contracts worth nearly £16 billion from Nasa, the US government’s space agency.

Just before Christmas in 2008, Musk and SpaceX were staring at an empty bank account. He was only saved through a £1.3 billion government contract to fly supply missions to the international space station.

Space X has won more contracts from the US military and other government agencies. 

Tesla made a killing from the sale of “regulatory credits”. This system sees the US government award credits to automakers producing zero emission vehicles—which they can then sell to other car manufacturers.

As a market-based “solution”, it fails to tackle the scale of the climate crisis. But it does make some capitalists rich. Regulatory credits accounted for almost 25 percent of Tesla’s revenue in 2008 and 10 percent of its revenue during the following five years.

Fundamentally, it’s not billionaires who create wealth—it’s the labour of millions of workers who keep the economy running. Where would Bezos be without the low-paid workers who keep Amazon’s vast warehouses running? 

Even if a particular group of workers doesn’t directly produce profits, it is still integral to keeping the profit system running. For example, without health or school workers, capitalism would find it harder to maintain a healthy and skilled workforce.

And states, run by politicians who cosy up to billionaires, rely on the taxes that hit workers or the profits that workers create. 

Whenever politicians or the media claim there is “no magic money tree”, don’t believe their lie. The money’s there. It’s in the wrong hands—but it doesn’t have to be if there’s a working class fightback.