U.S. Billionaires Grew Their Wealth by $340B in 2021 as Middle Class Shrinks

The richest billionaires in the United States grew their wealth by more than $340 billion over the last year, while the wealth held by the American middle class shrinks.

U.S. billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Steve Ballmer, Larry Elison, and Warren Buffett grew their combined wealth to about $341 billion in 2021, according to figures published by CNBC.

Elon Musk, the cofounder of Tesla, boosted his wealth by $121 billion in the last year — more growth than any other billionaire in the world. Meanwhile, Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos grew his wealth to $195 billion.

Bill Gates, cofounder of Microsoft, now holds nearly $140 billion in wealth while Google cofounder Larry Page holds about $130 billion after growing his wealth by $47 billion in 2021. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has a net wealth of about $128 billion thanks to a boost of $24 billion in 2021.

At the same time, the American middle class has seen a dramatic drop in wealth. The middle class includes 77.5 million U.S. households with an annual income of $27,000 to $141,000.- READ MORE