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The Coronavirus Pandemic Has Made These American Billionaires Even Richer

A report found that billionaires became $434 billion richer during the pandemic, which has left 38 million Americans unemployed.

American billionaires, particularly the CEOs of the largest tech companies, have become $434 billion richer during the coronavirus pandemic, with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeing the biggest gains to their fortunes, according to a report released Thursday. Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies’ Program for Inequality studied Forbes data for more than 600 billionaires between March 18 and May 19 as the coronavirus pandemic caused at least 38 million of Americans to lose their jobs. The report found that the collective fortunes of the super-rich spiked by 15 percent from $2.948 trillion to $3.382 trillion. The five wealthiest billionaires—Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, and Larry Ellison—accounted for $76 billion total in wealth gains. Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s net worth almost doubled during the two-month period, spiking 48 percent to $36.4 billion.