Tag: Esther’s writing prompt

Super Rich

Superfact 120: The amount of wealth owned by the billionaires is roughly double as much as the poorest half of the world’s population. The amount of wealth owned by the 12 richest billionaires is more than the wealth of the poorest 50% of the world’s population. The richest 1% of the global population owns approximately 38% to 45% of the world’s total wealth.

Esther’s writing prompt: July 15th : Rich

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A one hundred US Dollar bill sailing through a cloudy sky.
US 100 dollar bills falling through the air Shutterstock Asset id: 2555911235 by Caito

There are at the moment of this writing 3,428 dollar billionaires in the world worth 20.1 trillion dollars together. For comparison the poorest 50% of the world’s population holds between $9 trillion to $12 trillion dollars of wealth (about half). According to this report the amount of wealth owned by the poorest half of the world is less than the amount owned by just the 12 richest billionaires. By the time you read this the numbers have probably changed (likely upwards). You can also read more in Wikipedia. I am specifying that it is in dollars and not let say in the Iranian Rial. With respect to the Iranian Rial, I am also a billionaire, and you are probably too (if you own a phone or computer). One dollar can buy roughly 1,300,000 to 1,600,000 IRR. You just need $700 to be a billionaire in the Iranian Rial.

This is a bar graph showing the number of billionaires and combined wealth starting in 2013 and ending in 2026.
World’s billionaires. Number and total wealth by year. Trillions of dollars. The graph comes from here. <<Link-6>> Katharina Buchholz. Cropped and edited by User:Timeshifter using freeware IrfanView., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

I should say that initially I was just going to list interesting statistics about the super-rich. However, I found myself surprised by the statistics, and I am sure I am not the only one. Therefore, I picked a couple of facts I decided super facts.

The ten richest billionaires in the World

The numbers below are from Forbes Magazine. To see a list of all billionaires in the world, click here. To see a list with numbers that are updated minute by minute, click here.

  • Elon Musk – 839 billion dollars – source Tesla, SpaceX
  • Larry Page – 257 billion dollars – source Google
  • Sergey Brin – 237 billion dollars – source Google
  • Jeff Bezos – 224 billion dollars – source Amazon
  • Mark Zuckerberg – 222 billion dollars – source Facebook
  • Larry Ellison – 190 billion dollars – source Oracle
  • Bernard Arnault & family – 171 billion dollars – source LVMH
  • Jensen Huang – 154 billion dollars – semiconductors
  • Warren Buffet – 149 billion dollars – source Berkshire Hathaway
  • Amancio Ortega – 148 billion dollars – source Zara

Wealth share of the richest 1%

The richest 1% of the global population owns approximately 38% to 45% of the world’s total wealth, which is more than what 95% of humanity own according to Oxfam. The richest 1% of the global population is not about billionaires, it may very well include you and me. Our World in Data has collected and analyzed the statistics for each country in the world. The top richest 1% in the United States own 34.78% of the wealth in the United States. The top richest 1% in Russia own 48.99% of the wealth in Russia. The top richest 1% in Sweden own 27.49% of the wealth in Sweden. The top richest 1% in the Netherlands own 13.98% of the wealth in the Netherlands. See the graphs below from Our World in Data.

This is a world map showing the share of wealth owned by the richest 1% of the population in each country. The darker the color, the greater the wealth of the 1% in that country.
The share of wealth owned by the richest 1% of the population. Wealth is defined as the total value of non-financial and financial assets (housing, land, deposits, bonds, equities, etc.) held by households, minus their debts. Data source: World Inequality Database (WID.world) (2026) – Learn more about this data OurWorldinData.org/economic-inequality | CC BY

As you can see from the graphs below the extreme inequality is nothing new. Europe was extremely unequal in the 19th century. The 1% owned 58.01% of the wealth in 1900. The United States was relatively equal in 1978 when the 1% owned 21.79% of the wealth. Russia became very unequal since 1995. I suggest that you play around with the graphs yourself .

The graphs show the share of wealth owned by the 1% for Russia, Europe and the United States from 1820 to 2024.
The historic share of wealth owned by the 1% for different countries around the world, starting in 1820. Data source: World Inequality Database (WID.world) (2026) – Learn more about this data OurWorldinData.org/economic-inequality | CC BY

ABBA’s Money, Money, Money

Note: This post is not an implicit suggestion that we should tax billionaires more or less, and not about how or whether we should solve inequality, and it is not about politics. It is just surprising statistics regarding wealth and the reality of inequality.

My Other Responses to Esther’s Prompts

To see the Other Super Facts click here