Oxfam denounces this Monday the emergence of an “oligarchy” of billionaires dangerous for democracy, who are profiting from the return to the White House of Donald Trump. A warning issued just before the opening of the traditional meeting of the rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this Monday evening.
According to the NGO, the fortunes of billionaires soared by 2,000 billion dollars globally last year, or three times more than in 2023, to reach 15,000 billion. And “the policies defended by President Trump should cause inequality to soar,” warns Oxfam. The NGO estimates that five men can claim to achieve a fortune of 1,000 billion dollars within ten years, when “the number of people trapped in poverty has hardly changed since 1990”.
1,000 billion, the combined fortune of four Americans
A thousand billion is already the combined fortune of the four richest men in the world, all Americans and from tech: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos (Amazon, Blue Origin), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) and Larry Ellison (Oracle) . The first three, expected Monday at Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony, “today have more wealth than the poorest half of American society”, criticized Bernie Sanders.
“A new aristocratic oligarchy, heir to trillions, exercises sprawling power over our political and economic systems,” denounces Oxfam in its report on inequalities, which notes from year to year an increase in inequality. fortune of the super-rich.
The United States in the hands of “an oligarchy”?
“The crown jewel in this oligarchy is a billionaire president, supported and bought by the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, and running the world's largest economy,” criticizes Amitabh Behar, the executive director of long. The boss of the car manufacturer Tesla and the space company SpaceX, also owner of the social network X, largely financed Donald Trump's campaign and obtained an extra-governmental mission to cut public spending.
In the United States, “we are in the situation of being able to buy a country,” denounced the boss of Oxfam France, Cécile Duflot, during a press conference. The outgoing President of the United States Joe Biden himself deplored the mix between financial and political interests, evoking the appearance of a “technological-industrial complex” and saying he feared seeing America fall into the hands of a “ oligarchy.”
-“Tax the rich”
“Tax the rich” was one of the slogans of demonstrators who blocked the access road to Davos on Sunday to protest the World Economic Forum meeting. Several hundred were evicted by the police, according to the Keystone-ATS agency.
Our file on billionaires
“The World Economic Forum symbolizes the power that rich people like me have,” explained Austrian Marlene Engelhorn, who last year redistributed her inheritance of 25 million euros to various organizations.
More than sixty heads of state and government are expected in Davos this week, culminating on Thursday with a videoconference intervention by Donald Trump.
