California politics is currently being shaken up thanks to a drive, led by the Service Employees International Union, to enact a one-time wealth tax on the state's billionaires to offset federal cuts to healthcare and support public education and food assistance programs. Campaigning for the measure, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders told an enthusiastic crowd that "never before have so few people had so much wealth and so much power." In a democratic society, he thundered, "the billionaire class cannot have it all."
It's a message that's particularly relevant in today's world.
In January 2026, as the World Economic Forum opened in Davos, a report by the charity Oxfam revealed increasingly stark economic inequality. One-fourth of the world's population was afflicted by hunger and nearly half lived in poverty. Meanwhile billionaire wealth jumped by over 16 percent in 2025 to $18.4 trillion-- its highest level in history. The world's 12 richest billionaires, noted Oxfam, had more wealth than the poorest half of humanity, more than four billion people.
According to Forbes, the number of billionaires in the world rose from 140 in 1987 to a record 3,028 in March 2025. Moreover, they continued growing ever richer, with the wealth of the top 15 U.S. billionaires increasing during 2025 by over 31 percent. They included Elon Musk ($729 billion), Larry Page ($262 billion), Larry Ellison ($247 billion), Jeff Bezos ($243 billion), and Sergey Brin ($242 billion).
Although Americans constituted the largest number of billionaires in 2025 (902, up from 813 in 2024), most hailed from other countries. China-- despite its ostensible commitment, as a Communist nation, to economic equality-- had 450, up from 406 in 2024. If Hong Kong and Macau are included, China had 516 billionaires. China was followed in billionaire numbers by India (205), Germany (171), and Russia (140).
Why, it might be asked, does anyone need billions of dollars? After all, as Oxfam pointed out in January 2024, before the surge in billionaire wealth of the last two years, if each of the five richest billionaires were to spend a million dollars a day they would take 476 years on average to exhaust their combined wealth.
In the case of billionaires, though, needs are easily overwhelmed by desires. According to Forbes, "the number one must-have item of the super-rich" is the private, luxury jet plane. Although purchase costs usually run no higher than $110 million, Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov reportedly spent between $350 and $500 million to buy his private jet.
"Superyachts" are also in demand among the billionaire class. Business Insider observed n late 2025 that "palaces at sea have long been a status symbol for the masters of the universe, a place to live a life of excess and network, far removed from the prying eyes of ordinary people." And "as the rich get richer... their boats are getting longer." Brin, who has a flotilla of yachts, boats, and water toys, cared for by 50 full-time employees, recently purchased Dragonfly, a 466-foot superyacht with a glass-bottomed pool, cinema, spa, gym, business deck, and helicopter hangar. Similarly, Bezos recently purchased Koru, a $500 million, 417-foot superyacht.
Billionaires also maintain multiple homes. Although Bezos's two houses covering 28,000 square feet on a Seattle lakefront have provided him with his primary home, they constitute just one of his numerous residences. He also owns residential properties in New York City, Washington, DC, Maui, Hawaii, several large estates in California, a 30,000-acre ranch in Texas, and other homes elsewhere-- all told, worth more than $578 million. One of his most recently-acquired residences is located on what is called the "billionaire bunker," a luxury island near Miami.
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