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Billionaire wealth jumps three times faster in 2025 to the highest peak ever, sparking dangerous political inequality, says Oxfam

Billionaire wealth jumps three times faster in 2025 to highest peak ever, sparking dangerous political inequality says Oxfam

Billionaires 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary people

Billionaire wealth jumped by over 16% in 2025, three times faster than the past five-year average, to $18.3 trillion—its highest level in history, according to a new Oxfam report today as the World Economic Forum opens in Davos.

Billionaire wealth has increased by 81% since 2020. This comes as one in four people don’t regularly have enough to eat, and nearly half the world’s population live in poverty. 

The report “Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power” analyzes how the super-rich are securing political power to shape the rules of our economies and societies for their own gain and to the detriment of the rights and freedoms of people around the world.

The surge in billionaire wealth coincides with the US Trump administration pursuing a pro-billionaire agenda. It has slashed taxes for the super-rich, undermined global efforts to tax large corporations, reversed attempts to address monopoly power, and contributed to the growth of AI-related stocks that have provided a boon to super-rich investors worldwide. 

His presidency has sent a clear warning sign to the rest of the world about the power of the ultra-rich. Rather than solely a US phenomenon, Oxfam’s paper demonstrates that rising oligarchy is undermining societies worldwide. Oxfam’s report finds:

    • The collective wealth of billionaires last year surged by $2.5 trillion, almost equivalent to the total wealth held by the bottom half of humanity – 4.1 billion people.

    • The number of billionaires topped 3,000 last year for the first time, while the richest, Elon Musk, became the first ever to surpass half a trillion dollars. 

    • Billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary people.

    • The $2.5 trillion rise in billionaires’ wealth would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over.

In Asia, the wealthiest 10% capture 77% of the region’s income in Asia, while over half a billion people survive on less than $4.20 a day. Across ASEAN countries, inequality is just as stark. In several nations, the top 10% capture nearly half of all national income, while millions of ordinary people are left behind despite rapid economic growth. While these economies are growing rapidly, the benefits are overwhelmingly concentrated among the wealthy, leaving millions of ordinary people behind. This divide is leading to mass protests and strikes across the region as frustration among young people with inequality, low wages, unequal opportunities, and poor public services, with some of these demonstrations even toppling governments. 

‘Our societies are becoming more unequal and more polarized not by accident, but by design. The excessive power of the super-rich over politics, media, and economies is pushing us further away from justice, equality, and dignity,” said Monower Mostafa, SAAPE Economic Justice Campaign Member, Bangladesh.

Oxfam estimates that billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary citizens. A World Values Survey of 66 countries found that almost half of all people polled say that the rich often buy elections in their country. 

‘Some of the new legislations are attempting keep our mouths shut. When the states are unable to deliver people’s basic needs, they use oppressive measures to violate the right to freedom of expression and the right to life. “This is the irony we have been experiencing continuously,” said Herman Kumara, SAAPE Right to Food and Land Rights Campaign Member, Sri Lanka.

Billions of people are being left facing avoidable hardships of poverty, hunger, and death from preventable diseases because the system is rigged against them. Worldwide one in four people face food insecurity, having to regularly skip meals. 

The rate of poverty reduction has stagnated, with levels broadly where they were in 2019. Extreme poverty is rising again in Africa. Political decisions made by governments across the world last year to slash aid budgets have directly hit people living in poverty and could lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030.

Civil liberties and political rights are being rolled back and suppressed; 2024 was the nineteenth successive year of decline, with a quarter of all countries curtailing freedoms of expression. Last year there were more than 142 significant anti-government protests across 68 countries, which authorities typically met with violence.

The Oxfam report further highlights how extreme inequality threatens democratic systems. It notes that the chances of democratic backsliding—for example, through the erosion of the rule of law or the undermining of elections—are seven times more likely in highly unequal countries. “No country can afford to be complacent. Economic and political inequality can hasten the erosion of people’s rights and safety at an alarmingly fast pace,” the report states.

Governments are allowing the super-rich to dominate media and social media companies. Billionaires own more than half the world’s largest media companies and all the main social media companies.

The report cites Jeff Bezos’ purchase of the Washington Post, Elon Musk with Twitter/X, Patrick Soon-Shiong with the Los Angeles Times and a billionaire consortium buying large shares of The Economist. In France, far-right billionaire Vincent Bolloré now controls CNews, rebranding it as the French equivalent of Fox News. In the UK, three-quarters of newspaper circulation is controlled by four super-rich families.  

The report cites evidence that only 27 per cent of top editors globally are female and just 23 per cent belong to racialized groups respectively. This has seen their voices marginalized, while minorities like immigrants and people of colour are often stigmatized and scapegoated and critics silenced. 

‘Gender justice means ensuring that every woman has equal rights, opportunities and dignity — and that economic and social systems uphold these principles, not undermine them.” — Zakia Soman, SAAPE Women Rights Campaign Member, India.

Rapid digital growth is leaving millions behind. Women in South Asia are 41% less likely than men to use mobile internet, and the region recorded 202 internet shutdowns in 2024, the highest worldwide. Pakistan’s 2023 shutdown is reported to have cost more than $17 million, severely disrupting access to welfare, education, and healthcare. Meanwhile, limited access to technology is excluding people from education, employment, and essential services, further entrenching inequality.

SAAPE together with Fight Inequality Alliance and Oxfam is calling on governments to prioritise:

    • Realistic and time-bound National Inequality Reduction Plans, with well-established benchmarks and regular monitoring of progress. 

    • Effectively taxing the super-rich to reduce their power, including with broad-base taxes on income and wealth at high enough rates to reduce massive levels of inequality.

    • Stronger firewalls between wealth and politics including by tougher regulations against lobbying and campaign financing by the rich, ensuring more media independence, and banning hate speech. 

    • Accountability for the political empowerment of ordinary citizens, including stronger protection for people’s freedoms of association, assembly and expression and for civil society organisations and trade unions.

Contacts:

South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE)

Gairidhara, Kathmandu, Nepal

Tel: 977-1-4004976, 4004507

Email: saape.network@gmail.com

Notes to Editor

    • Download Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power full report, executive summary and methodology note

    • Billionaire data is based on Oxfam’s analysis of Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaire List for the year to 30 November 2025. Full calculations for billionaire statistics are in the methodology note 

    • Hunger figures are from The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025report.In 2024, 28 per cent of the world population faced severe or moderate food insecurity  

    • A Freedom House report found that 2024 was the nineteenth successive year of decline in global freedoms

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