Billionaire retail magnates see fortunes soar during pandemic

A new report by Americans for Tax Fairness shows the collective wealth of America’s 651 billionaires has soared to over 4 trillion dollars since the beginning of the pandemic. To put that into perspective, their increase in fortunes since March is greater than the 908 billion dollars of pandemic relief proposed by the U.S. government.

Retail magnates like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have seen a huge surge in earnings. Bezos’s wealth grew from 113 billion dollars on March 18 to 184 billion dollars an increase of 63 percent. If Bezos’s 71.4 billion dollar growth in wealth was distributed to all his 810,000 U.S. employees each would get a windfall bonus totalling more than 88,000 dollars and Bezos would not be any “poorer” than he was 9 months ago, said the report.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth grew from 54.7 billion dollars on March 18 to 105 billion dollars, an increase of 92 percent, fueled by his Facebook stock.

Ana Arendar, the head of Oxfam’s inequality campaign, told the Guardian the fact that the richest of the rich have made so much money during the coronavirus pandemic “proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the global economic system is not fit for purpose”.

In Europe, LVMH owner Bernard Arnault saw his fortune double since the onset of the pandemic, from 69bn dollars in March to 148bn dollars. He is now the third-richest person on the planet.

Amancio Ortega, founder of Zara parent Inditex, saw his fortune rise 47 percent to 75bn dollars.