As the S&P 500 and DJIA soared to new closing records on Monday even as New York State is reportedly on track to adopt a groundbreaking state wealth tax (the latest effort by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to distract from the twin scandals over sexual harassment of female aides and his office's efforts to cover up the number of COVID deaths in the state's nursing homes), the Institute for Policy Studies has published the results of its latest review of billionaire wealth.
Unsurprisingly, given the tremendous rally in asset prices over the past year, the 2,365 billionaires living on planet earth have seen their wealth increase by a collective $4 trillion - a 54% increase over the span of a year. Put another way, total wealth held by billionaires ballooned to $12.39 trillion, up from $8.04 trillion.
270 billionaires were added to the Institute's billionaires list - ie the tres commas club - during the past year, while 91 names were removed for - for a net increase of 179 (we wish the 91 individuals removed from the list the best of luck on "re-billionizing".
Of the nearly 2.5K billionaires tracked by the Institute, 13 billionaires saw their wealth soar by more than 500%. The Institute grouped these lucky individuals in its "500% Club". It noted that all of them had investments and connections to companies that benefited the most (in terms of market capitalization) from the pandemic.
Members include Elon Musk, Dan Gilbert and a handful of Chinese entrepreneurs:
1. Zhong Shanshan (3300 percent/$66 billion gain), China. Saw his wealth rise an eye-popping 3,300 percent during the pandemic year, from $2 billion to $68 billion. The wealth...