Five Trillionaires, 3.6 Billion in Poverty: The New Global Wealth Divide

The Age of Trillionaires: Built on Inheritance, Not Merit

The world is moving from the era of the billionaire to the age of the trillionaire, and the wealth that defines this new class will be built far less on entrepreneurial merit and far more on inheritance, monopoly power, and political access.

At the same time, global poverty has stagnated: around 3.5–3.6 billion people still live below the US$6.85-per-day threshold, a figure that has barely shifted since 1990 even as billionaire wealth has exploded. For CEOs, investors, and policymakers, this divergence is no longer just a moral issue; it is becoming a material risk to growth, stability, and the social license of markets.​

A New Trillionaire Class Is Coming

• CEOWORLD magazine’s latest inequality analysis projects that, if current trends continue, the world will see at least five trillionaires within the next decade.
• In 2024 alone, billionaire wealth grew by roughly US$2 trillion to about US$15 trillion, increasing at three times the rate of the previous year and adding nearly four new billionaires every week.​

This acceleration is happening in an environment where the richest 1% now control an estimated 45% of global wealth, consolidating economic and political power in unprecedented ways. For corporate boards and asset allocators, that concentration reshapes everything from consumer demand to regulatory backlash cycles.​

“Takers, Not Makers”: Where Extreme Wealth Really Comes From

The prevailing myth of modern capitalism is that billionaire fortunes are primarily the product of innovation and exceptional performance. CEOWORLD magazine’s analysis and related research now point to a very different reality.​

Inheritance, Cronyism and Monopoly

• Around 60% of billionaire wealth worldwide is now attributed to inheritance, monopoly power, or crony connections between the ultra-rich and governments.​
• Within that 60%, approximately 36% is derived from inheritance, 18% from monopolistic power, and 6% from crony or corrupt sources.​

For the first time, more new billionaires in 2024 emerged through inheritance than through entrepreneurship, and every billionaire under the age of 30 is reported to have inherited their wealth. This marks the beginning of a large-scale dynastic transition: over the next three decades, more than US$5.2 trillion in billionaire wealth is expected to transfer to heirs, often lightly taxed or shielded via sophisticated structures.​

For executives, this shift has two implications:

• Markets are increasingly shaped by entrenched dynasties rather than first-generation builders.
• The narrative of “meritocratic” ultra-wealth is losing credibility with employees, customers, and voters.

Billionaire Colonialism: Old Extraction, New Systems

CEOWORLD magazine frames the current moment as the “age of billionaire colonialism,” arguing that today’s extreme wealth is anchored both in historic extraction and contemporary systems that continue to move value from the Global South to the Global North.​

Historic Extraction at Trillion-Dollar Scale

• Between 1765 and 1900, the richest 10% in the UK are estimated to have extracted the equivalent of US$33.8 trillion in today’s money from India alone.​
• In the 1770s, as much as 40% of Dutch economic growth has been linked to profits from slavery and the slave trade, while European colonization in the Americas wiped out roughly 90% of Indigenous peoples, shrinking the global population by about 10%.​

These historical flows disproportionately enriched ruling elites and business interests in colonizing powers, embedding a structural head start in capital accumulation that compounds across centuries. Many of today’s great fortunes, portfolios, and institutional endowments sit on top of that earlier foundation.​

Where Billionaires Live — and Where the Money Comes From

• Today, about 68% of the world’s billionaires, holding roughly 77% of total billionaire wealth, reside in the rich countries of the Global North, which are home to only around one-fifth of the world’s population.​
• Meanwhile, progress on poverty reduction has slowed to a standstill, with billions remaining in or near poverty despite decades of aggregate GDP growth.​

For multinational corporations and global investors, this geography of wealth versus population shapes both opportunity and risk: growth markets are often in the Global South, but value capture still overwhelmingly accrues to balance sheets headquartered in the North.

How Today’s System Transfers Wealth Upwards

The report highlights three core pillars through which modern global architecture continues to reinforce unequal outcomes: financial systems, multilateral governance, and trade and investment regimes.​

A Financial System That Pays the North

• In the first quarter of 2024, central banks held about 58.9% of their allocated reserves in US dollars, embedding a powerful structural advantage for dollar-based financial actors.​
• CEOWORLD magazine estimates that this reserve-currency imbalance drives an annual net transfer of roughly US$1 trillion from the Global South to the Global North, with about US$30 million per hour accruing to the richest 1% in rich countries.​

This is effectively a quiet, continuous rent stream embedded in the currency system, benefitting major financial centers, asset managers, and wealthy investors in the North.​

Governance Power: Votes That Don’t Weigh the Same

• G7 countries hold around 41% of the votes at the IMF and World Bank despite representing less than 10% of the world’s population.​
• On a per-capita basis, the average person in the Global North has roughly eight times the voting weight of the average person in the Global South, and an individual in the UK has been estimated to have about 41 times the voting power of a person in Bangladesh at the IMF.​

This asymmetry shapes lending conditions, crisis responses, and the policy templates imposed on low- and middle-income countries — outcomes that ultimately impact corporate tax regimes, labor markets, and regulatory environments where global firms operate.​

Trade Patterns That Lock in Low-Value Roles

Global South economies are frequently locked into export-oriented models focused on raw materials and low-cost manufacturing, echoing colonial-era patterns that favor capital-intensive, high-value activities in the Global North. Trade and investment rules often constrain the policy space for industrial upgrading, value-add manufacturing, or digital sovereignty in poorer countries.​

For global businesses, the upside is lower input costs; the downside is rising political pressure to “rebalance” systems seen as structurally unfair, with potential for sudden regulatory, tax, and trade shifts.

Why This Matters for CEOs, Investors and Policymakers

For leaders at the top of the wealth and influence pyramid, these dynamics are not abstract. They are reshaping reputational risk, policy agendas, and the operating environment for global capital.

Strategic Risks in an Unequal World

• Extreme concentration of wealth correlates with political instability, policy volatility, and rising support for redistributive or nationalist policies that can materially affect corporate valuations and capital flows.​
• The perception that ultra-wealth is “unearned” — driven by inheritance, monopoly advantage, and political connections — erodes trust in both markets and institutions, which in turn can trigger more aggressive regulation or taxation.​

Boards, family offices, and major asset managers are already encountering growing scrutiny around tax strategies, lobbying, and supply-chain footprints, particularly among younger stakeholders and employees.

From Passive Beneficiaries to Active Architects

The CEOWORLD magazine framework is explicit about what a corrective agenda might look like: ambitious inequality reduction, formal acknowledgment of colonial harms, institutional governance reform, and more progressive taxation of extreme wealth. For decision-makers in business and finance, there are at least three actionable directions:​

• Engage on tax and governance reform: Support transparent, rules-based tax cooperation and governance modernization at global institutions as a long-term risk mitigation strategy rather than a defensive concession.​
• Reassess where margins come from: Evaluate how much profit depends on regulatory capture, monopoly power, or structurally weak bargaining positions in the Global South — and what happens if those conditions change.​
• Build a credible “earned wealth” narrative: Shift emphasis toward value creation tied to innovation, real-economy investment, quality jobs, and fairer supply-chain relationships to sustain the social legitimacy of high returns.​

In an age where data on inequality is widely accessible, silence or denial is itself a reputational stance.

Six Policy Shifts That Could Redraw the Map

The report outlines six broad moves that, if executed, could materially shift the trajectory of global inequality and the structure of extreme wealth.​

1. Hard Targets on Inequality

Governments are encouraged to adopt explicit inequality goals — for example, ensuring that the total income of the richest 10% does not exceed that of the poorest 40%. For businesses, this would likely mean higher minimum wages, stronger labor protections, and more scrutiny of executive pay and buybacks.​

2. Acknowledgment and Reparations for Colonial Harms

Former colonial powers are urged to formally recognize past crimes and commit to reparations, potentially through targeted investment, debt relief, or compensatory mechanisms. This could catalyze new flows of capital toward infrastructure, health, and climate adaptation in the Global South — and create long-term markets for private-sector partners.​

3. Governance Reform at Global Institutions

A rebalancing of voting rights and leadership structures at the IMF, World Bank, UN, and related bodies would give the Global South greater influence over macroeconomic rules and crisis responses. For global firms, that would likely translate into new standards on taxation, labor, and climate aligned more closely with emerging-market priorities.​

4. A UN-Led Global Tax Architecture

The report advocates for a new UN tax convention, harmonizing global tax policy and enabling higher, more coordinated taxation of the richest individuals and multinational corporations. Executives should anticipate growing momentum toward minimum wealth taxes, windfall profit taxes, and stricter enforcement against profit shifting.​

5. South–South Alliances for Economic Independence

Governments in the Global South are encouraged to deepen alliances that reduce dependence on former colonial powers, improve bargaining power in trade, and diversify financial relationships. This trend is already visible in regional development banks, currency-swap arrangements, and new trade blocs that could alter traditional investment patterns.​

6. Completing the Work of Decolonization

Ending remaining forms of formal colonial rule and supporting non-self-governing territories in realizing self-determination is framed as essential to a fairer global order. While politically sensitive, such moves would reconfigure jurisdictional control over resources, taxation, and regulation.​

For global elites, the common thread is clear: the structures that have quietly amplified wealth for decades are moving to the center of policy and political debate.

Inequality and Unearned Wealth

Below is a concise, data-driven table summarizing key metrics referenced in the analysis, suitable for executive briefings and investor decks.

In the decade ahead, the emergence of a trillionaire class will not simply be another chapter in the story of entrepreneurial success; it will be a test of whether capitalism can reconcile compounding unearned privilege with demands for fairness, stability, and shared opportunity. For the leaders who shape markets and policy, the choice is between managing that transition deliberately — or having the rules rewritten in response to pressures they chose to ignore.