Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a Passover gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
Fast Forward

3 Jewish Moguls Among Eight Who Own as Much as Half the Human Race

As the world’s mandarins prepare for their annual reunion in Davos, Switzerland, the British charity Oxfam is calling attention to income inequality by pointing out that eight billionaires — three of them Jewish — hold as much wealth as the poorest half of the Earth’s population.

In their ranked list, headed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates ($75 billion), the Jews come in at six, seven and eight. They are Facebook chairman Mark Zuckerberg ($44.6 billion), Larry Ellison ($43.6 billion), chief executive of the software maker Oracle number seven and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ($40 billion).

“Across the world, people are being left behind. Their wages are stagnating yet corporate bosses take home million dollar bonuses; their health and education services are cut while corporations and the super-rich dodge their taxes; their voices are ignored as governments sing to the tune of big business and a wealthy elite,” said Winnie Byanyima, the leader of Oxfam International.

This is the thirty first annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. In that time the share of wealth owned by the global elite has increased by all measures.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.