the Institute for Policy Studies has published the results of its latest review of billionaire wealth.

Unsurprisingly, given the tremendous rally in asset prices over the past year, the 2,365 billionaires living on planet earth have seen their wealth increase by a collective $4 trillion - a 54% increase over the span of a year. Put another way, total wealth held by billionaires ballooned to $12.39 trillion, up from $8.04 trillion.

270 billionaires were added to the Institute's billionaires list - ie the tres commas club - during the past year, while 91 names were removed for - for a net increase of 179 (we wish the 91 individuals removed from the list the best of luck on "re-billionizing".

Of the nearly 2.5K billionaires tracked by the Institute, 13 billionaires saw their wealth soar by more than 500%.

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Members include Elon Musk, Dan Gilbert and a handful of Chinese entrepreneurs:

1. Zhong Shanshan (3300 percent/$66 billion gain), China. Saw his wealth rise an eye-popping 3,300 percent during the pandemic year, from $2 billion to $68 billion. The wealth surge was the result of two of his companies going public in 2020, Nongfu bottled water and Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy.

2. Tatyana Bakalchuk (1,200 percent/$12 billion gain), Russia. Founded the e-commerce apparel company, Wildberries. Her wealth increased by $12 billion over the pandemic, rising from $1 billion to $13 billion.

3. Zuo Hui (714 percent/$15.9 billion gain), China. Chair of Homelink, China’s largest real estate brokerage company. Wealth increased $15.9 billion, from $2.2 billion to $17.9 billion.

9. Elon Musk ($559 percent/$137.5 billion gain), US. Musk is now the third wealthiest person in the world as his shares in Tesla, Space-X and other companies that he owns continue to climb. His wealth increased $558.9 percent, from $24.6 billion to $162.1 billion during the pandemic year (down $9.9 billion from March 17, 2021, so fluctuating wildly).

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/...uring-pandemic