the indecent bonus of billionaires in 2024

“Paloma”, the 60-meter-long yacht of French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, here at Cap d'Antibes in 2020. – Arnaud 25 / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons

“Paloma”, the 60-meter-long yacht of French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, here at Cap d'Antibes in 2020. – Arnaud 25 / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons

Updated January 20, 2025 at 5:03 p.m.

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« Billionaires' fortunes increased by $2 trillion in 2024, three times faster than in 2023 »reveals a new report from Oxfam, published on January 20. The day when the world's economic elites meet at the forum in Davos, Switzerland, theONG alert on the increase in global inequalities.

In 2024, an additional 204 people became billionaires worldwide, according to the report. That’s almost four new billionaires per week on average. In France, the fortunes of billionaires have not increased in 2024, but they have grown « more than 24 billion euros since 2019, or 13 million euros per day ».

Would billionaires have been particularly productive in 2024? ? No, because this accumulation of wealth is less the fruit of hard work than that of a juicy inheritance, underlines the Oxfam report, entitled « The art of taking without undertaking ».

Legacies and colonialism

Thus, 36 % of billionaires' wealth comes from inheritances. « For the first time, in 2024, more people who have become billionaires owe this status to inheritances than to their entrepreneurship »calculated theONG.

She also recalls that many hyper-rich owe their fortune to colonialism, and to the exploitation of the wealth of the countries of the South, taking for example the Frenchman Vincent Bolloré who made his fortune in Africa, at the expense of the forest and in contempt of human rights.

To try to reduce these inequalities, Oxfam is issuing a series of recommendations, including the taxation of inheritances and the cancellation of the debts of countries in the South.