DAVOS: As the rich and powerful from across the world start filling snow-clad lanes here, a new study said billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold any political office than ordinary people, and their wealth jumped three times faster in 2025 than the past-five-year average to a record high of USD 18.3 trillion.

In Indian currency, it translates to more than Rs 1,660 lakh crore.

Hours before the 56th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026 begins in this Swiss ski resort town, rights group Oxfam International released its own annual inequality report to highlight that the ever-deepening wealth divide was also sparking dangerous political inequality.

The meeting is being attended by over 3,000 global leaders, including more than 60 heads of state or government, as part of an over 400-strong political leadership presence in this small town in the Alps.

Oxfam International said the billionaire wealth jumped by over 16 per cent in 2025, while it has increased by 81 per cent since 2020.

"This comes as one in four people don't regularly have enough to eat, and nearly half the world's population live in poverty," it added.

The report, titled 'Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power', analysed how the super-rich were securing political power to shape the rules of our economies and societies for their own gain and the detriment of the rights and freedoms of people around the world.

Oxfam said the surge in billionaire wealth coincided with the US Trump administration pursuing a pro-billionaire agenda, as it has slashed taxes for the super-rich, undermined global efforts to tax large corporations, reversed attempts to address monopoly power and contributed to the growth of AI-related stocks that have provided a boon to super-rich investors worldwide.

Trump is among the top global leaders attending the WEF meeting.

Oxfam said the Trump presidency has sent a clear warning sign to the rest of the world about the power of the ultra-rich and the rising oligarchy, which is undermining societies worldwide rather than being solely a US phenomenon.

It said the collective wealth of billionaires last year surged by USD 2.5 trillion, almost equivalent to the total wealth held by the bottom half of humanity, or about 4.1 billion people.

This increase itself would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over, it pointed out.

The number of billionaires topped 3,000 last year for the first time, while the richest, Elon Musk, became the first ever to surpass half a trillion dollars.

"The widening gap between the rich and the rest is, at the same time, creating a political deficit that is highly dangerous and unsustainable," Oxfam Executive Director Amitabh Behar said.

Oxfam estimated that billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary citizens. It cited a 'World Values Survey' of 66 countries that found that almost half of all people polled say that the rich often buy elections in their country.

"Governments are making wrong choices to pander to the elite and defend wealth while repressing people's rights and anger at how so many of their lives are becoming unaffordable and unbearable," Behar said.

Billions of people are being left facing avoidable hardships of poverty, hunger and death from preventable diseases because the system is rigged against them, while one in four people worldwide face food insecurity, having to regularly skip meals, Oxfam said.

It further said civil liberties and political rights are being rolled back and suppressed, while last year there were more than 142 significant anti-government protests across 68 countries, which authorities typically met with violence.

"Being economically poor creates hunger. Being politically poor creates anger," Behar said.

The chances of democratic backsliding through, for example, the erosion of the rule of law or the undermining of elections, are seven times more likely in highly unequal countries, the Oxfam report said.

Behar said no country can afford to be complacent, as the pace at which economic and political inequality can hasten the erosion of people's rights and safety can be frighteningly fast.

Oxfam further said governments are allowing the super-rich to dominate media and social media companies, as billionaires own more than half the world's largest media companies and all the main social media companies.

It cited Jeff Bezos' purchase of the Washington Post, Elon Musk with Twitter/X, Patrick Soon-Shiong with the Los Angeles Times and a billionaire consortium buying large shares of The Economist.

In France, far-right billionaire Vincent Bollore now controls CNews, rebranding it as the French equivalent of Fox News. In the UK, three-quarters of newspaper circulation is controlled by four super-rich families.

The report further flagged that only 27 per cent of top editors globally are female and just 23 per cent belong to racialised groups.

Oxfam called on governments to prioritise realistic and time-bound National Inequality Reduction Plans, effectively taxing the super-rich to reduce their power, and ensuring stronger firewalls between wealth and politics.

It also sought accountability for the political empowerment of ordinary citizens, including stronger protection for people's freedoms of association, assembly and expression and for civil society organisations and trade unions.

Oxfam said the report referred to the Forbes billionaires list, the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025 report, the World Bank June 2025 Update to Global Poverty Lines, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Global Protest Tracker, and a Freedom House report as its various sources.