The combined wealth of the US's billionaires, including Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla chief Elon Musk, has increased nearly 10% during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report published by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).
The wealth surge of the US's richest people happened as almost 22-million Americans filed for unemployment.
Even as the broader economy faced a recession, tech and stay-at-home stocks such as Zoom rallied due to a surge in usage of video conferencing and remote-work technology.
"This is the tale of two pandemics, with very unequal sacrifice," said Chuck Collins, a co-author of the report.
During the period between January 1 and April 10 this year, 34 of the US's wealthiest billionaires saw their net worth increase by tens of millions of dollars, the IPS report says.
According to the report, eight of these billionaires, including Bezos, Zoom Video Communications founder Eric Yuan and Musk, saw a $1bn (R18.9bn) jump in their total net worth.
Musk holds an 18.5% stake in Tesla, whose shares have soared 73% since the beginning of the year as traders looked beyond the short-term impact of the pandemic.
Bezos owns about 15.1% of Amazon stock, which has gained nearly 31% this year as online orders surged due to lockdowns.
In the past decade, the wealth of US billionaires jumped more than 80.6%, adjusted for inflation, the report adds.
Reuters
