Surging billionaire wealth a political threat, Oxfam warns as Davos opens

Davos, Switzerland: The collective wealth of the planet s billionaires soared to a record level in 2025, charity Oxfam reported Monday, warning of hi...

Davos, Switzerland: The collective wealth of the planet's billionaires soared to a record level in 2025, charity Oxfam reported Monday, warning of "highly dangerous" political consequences as the global elite gathers for the World Economic Forum.

US President Donald Trump's policies in particular spurred the fortunes of the ultra-rich, which jumped 16.2 percent in the first year of his second term to $18.3 trillion, the NGO said in a report released each year ahead of the Davos forum.

"Actions of the Trump presidency including the championing of deregulation and undermining agreements to increase corporate taxation have benefited the richest around the world," Oxfam said.

The world now has more than 3,000 billionaires for the first time, it added, with the top 12 -- led by Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk -- having "more wealth than the poorest half of humanity, or more than four billion people".

Increasingly this money is buying political power, Oxfam said, pointing in particular to tycoons' buying newspapers and other media, such as Musk's takeover of X or the purchase of The Washington Post by Amazon's Jeff Bezos.