Billionaires are thriving from crisis
The billionaire boom is funding anti-democratic, anti-worker projects.
There are more billionaires with more wealth than ever before, with their ranks expected to swell. And the first trillionaire is on the horizon.
What billionaires do with their vast wealth should concern us all. This week’s bulletin looks at new research from Oxfam and the ITUC that shows not just where this wealth is coming from but that it is funding anti-worker projects. Check out last week’s bulletin, if you missed it, on the growing gap between fat cat CEOs and workers.
Billionaire bounty, in numbers
Economic behemoths. 3,428 billionaires, 86% of them men, dominate the global economy. Collectively, these billionaires have wealth equivalent to 17% of global GDP. Billionaires have significant economic and political influence: seven out of 10 of the largest listed corporates in the world have a billionaire as either a principal shareholder or their CEO.
Reaching new heights. The world’s billionaires reached a new record wealth high in 2026 - they are $4 trillion richer than they were 12 months ago. Four out of five billionaires are richer now than a year ago. Their total wealth is $1.5 trillion more than the combined wealth held by the poorest 4.1 billion people in the world.
Billionaire dividend. Shareholder payouts are perhaps the clearest form of corporate profits being diverted away from what could have been invested or paid out to workers instead. Of the almost 1,000 billionaires whose investment portfolios were identified, nearly $80 billion was paid out to billionaires in dividends in 2025, which equates to $2,500 per second. The average payout was $79.5 million which means that the average billionaire makes more in less than two hours than the average worker will all year.
Billion-dollar payouts. Some of the biggest payouts in 2025 went to Bernard Arnault, owner of luxury brand LVMH who pocketed $3.8 billion and Inditex (Zara) owner Amancio Ortega whose payouts totalled $3.7 billion.
Instead of investing company profits in workers and the environment, dividends are funnelling the economic value created by workers into the pockets of the super–rich.
Billionaire profits funding anti-democratic, anti-worker projects. Cash payouts to the richest are not just used to live luxury lifestyles but are also too often used to fuel further attacks on workers, using their wealth to capture politics and the media. Billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary people.
Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, has used his wealth to become a major stakeholder in Paramount, which was purchased by his son’s company and includes major broadcast networks CBS.
In France, far-right fossil-fuel billionaire Vincent Bolloré bought CNews and rebranded it as the French equivalent of Fox news.
The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post overhauled its opinions section to prioritise content that promotes ‘personal liberties and free markets’.
Oxfam has filed a UN complaint against billionaire owned Amazon and Walmart for systematic human rights violations. Worker organizations have long drawn attention to the union busting activities of these companies and their aggressive monitoring of workers.
Unions are fighting back. Trade unions are on the frontlines of the fight to protect democracy. The ITUC Fight for Democracy campaign is calling out the corporate underminers of democracy and exposing the billionaire coup against democracy.
Something to read/listen to
Listen to the latest episode of the Equals podcast with Adam Hanieh who explains why crises like war, financial shocks, and pandemics don’t stay where they start. They move through the structures of the global economy.
Watch highlights from Oxfam in America’s recent event, Beyond America First: US International Economic Policy in a Multipolar World, exploring how US economic policy is evolving in a rapidly shifting global order.
You can also watch the full discussion here.
Read this excerpt from Karl Marx on alienation and labour under capitalism. Written more than 180 years ago, it still cuts uncomfortably close to modern work, inequality, and economic power. Marx on Alienated Labour
Read this new Jacobin article on the forgotten labour struggles in the former Danish colony of Saint Croix, and how enslaved and formerly enslaved workers resisted empire and exploitation.
Clara Mattei’s new book, Escape from Capitalism, explores whether societies can move beyond systems built around austerity, inequality, and profit extraction.
Read this BBC article on the Samsung family completing what is believed to be one of the world’s largest inheritance tax payments — roughly $8 billion over five years.
Listen to this episode of Capitalisn’t on “Muskism” and the changing shape of American capitalism featuring Quinn Slobodian. Also, coming next Tuesday on the EQUALS podcast a new episode with Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff, authors of Muskism.
Read this new Human Rights Watch feature on how algorithmic management in the gig economy is reshaping work across the world.