The Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent shutdowns are being credited with adding $1.8 trillion dollars in wealth to the richest people in the world.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the world’s 500 richest people are now worth a combined net worth of $7.6 trillion dollars.
The report asserts that this is the largest annual gain in the index’s eight-year history. At the top of the list is Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos whose net worth about $190 billion. The tech company made massive profits because of the coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions that forced people to stay home, and shop online.
Second on the list is Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk who had the largest increase to his wealth, and Bloomberg reported, had potentially the fastest path to being a billionaire in history.
Musk is now worth $170 billion.
As of this weekend Tesla has a market value of almost $670 billion. According to the report, Bezos and Musk had an increase of about $217 billion in 12 months which the report indicates is roughly enough money to be able to send $2,000 checks to more than 100 million Americans.
Facebook founder and CEO mark Zuckerberg is the fifth-richest person in the world with a net worth of about $104 billion.
