UBS: Wealth of the world’s richest people will jump 17% in 2024 to $14 trillion

The Swiss bank UBS said on Thursday that the wealth owned by the world’s billionaires jumped by about 17% during the past year, as large gains among the super-rich in the United States offset the decline in China.

According to CNN, the UBS Billionaires Aspirations Report for 2024 stated that the total number of billionaires rose to 2,682 from 2,544 a year ago, and the value of their wealth reached $14 trillion from $12 trillion, and in 2015, their total wealth was $6.3 trillion.

According to the World Bank, the world’s population was more than 8 billion last year, and the gross domestic product was about $105.4 trillion, confirming the extent to which wealth is concentrated in a small segment of humanity.

The UBS report showed that most of the new billionaires of the year were self-made, while the 2023 report had revealed that new billionaires gained more wealth through inheritance than entrepreneurship.

The latest report, based on a survey of billionaires conducted between June and September and the wealth data of the wealthy, showed that the risk of geopolitical conflict and inflation were among the top concerns facing billionaires.

In the United States, the number of billionaires jumped to 835 from 751, led by industry and technology moguls, whose combined wealth rose to $5.8 trillion from $4.6 trillion.

In China, the number of billionaires fell to 427 from 520, and their wealth fell to $1.4 trillion from $1.8 trillion. In 2021, there were 626 billionaires in China, with their combined wealth amounting to more than $2.5 trillion, according to previous UBS data.

Tech billionaires’ wealth grew at the fastest pace in a decade, but their peers in the industry were less than expected, with tech billionaires tripling their wealth from $789 billion in 2015 to $2.4 trillion in 2024.

At the same time, industry billionaires increased their wealth by the second-largest amount, from $480 billion to $1.3 trillion.

Billionaires have always been mobile, with their homes, families and businesses spread across different countries. But since 2020, they’ve been moving more frequently, with 176 of them moving from one country to another, out of a total of 2,682 in April 2024. In total, billionaires worth more than $400 billion have emigrated in four years.

Billionaire families have expanded in the past decade, with more children, creating more complexity. Their number of children will grow from 4,136 in 2015 to 6,441 in 2024, according to UBS estimates. The heirs of baby boomers and their favorite philanthropic causes are expected to inherit an estimated $6.3 trillion over the next 15 years, higher than expected in 2023 because more billionaires are turning 70 and their asset values ​​are rising.