How much the richest 20 American billionaires made during the COVID-19 pandemic?
For Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Covid pandemic has been good for business. The three billionaires, like many of the richest people in the world, have become even richer since the coronavirus struck.
According to the CEOWORLD magazine, the richest 5 American billionaires — which include Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates, Facebook CEO (NASDAQ: FB) Mark Zuckerberg, and Berkshire Hathaway CEO (NYSE: BRK.A) Warren Buffett — have collectively seen their wealth grow by $327.9 billion between March and November last year.
In all, America’s 5 richest billionaires went from owning $357.8 billion in wealth at the start of the pandemic to $687.7 billion as 2020 drew to a close. According to CEOWORLD magazine, their increase in wealth would be more than enough to pay for a Covid-19 vaccine for all, which the international humanitarian group Oxfam estimated at $141.2 billion. CEOWORLD magazine ranked the 20 American billionaires whose monetary wealth grew the most from March 18, 2020, to January 21, 2021.
| Rank | Name | Source of wealth | Net worth as of March 18, 2020 | Net worth as of Jan. 21, 2021 | Change in net worth from March 18, 2020-Jan. 21, 2021 | % Change in net worth from March 18, 2020-Jan. 21, 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jeff Bezos | Amazon | $113B | $192.3B | $79.3B | 70.18 |
| 2 | Elon Musk | Tesla/SpaceX | $24.6B | $182.9B | $158.3B | 643.5 |
| 3 | Bill Gates | Microsoft | $98B | $121.6B | $23.6B | 24.08 |
| 4 | Mark Zuckerberg | $54.7B | $99.8B | $45.1B | 82.45 | |
| 5 | Warren Buffett | Berkshire Hathaway | $67.5B | $89.1B | $21.6B | 32 |
| 6 | Larry Ellison | Oracle | $59B | $86.5B | $27.5B | 46.61 |
| 7 | Larry Page | $50.9B | $82.6B | $31.7B | 62.28 | |
| 8 | Sergey Brin | $49.1B | $80.2B | $31.1B | 63.34 | |
| 9 | Steve Ballmer | Microsoft | $52.7B | $75.9B | $23.2B | 44.02 |
| 10 | Alice Walton | Walmart | $54.4B | $67.7B | $13.3B | 24.45 |
| 11 | Jim Walton | Walmart | $54.6B | $67.5B | $12.9B | 23.63 |
| 12 | Rob Walton | Walmart | $54.1B | $67.2B | $13.1B | 24.21 |
| 13 | MacKenzie Scott | Amazon | $36B | $58.3B | $22.3B | 61.94 |
| 14 | Michael Bloomberg | Bloomberg LP | $48B | $54.9B | $6.9B | 14.38 |
| 15 | Phil Knight | Nike | $29.5B | $56B | $23.5B | 79.66 |
| 16 | Julia Koch | Koch Industries | $38.2B | $44.9B | $6.7B | 17.54 |
| 17 | Charles Koch | Koch Industries | $38.2B | $44.9B | $6.7B | 17.54 |
| 18 | Daniel Gilbert | Quicken Loans | $6.5B | $42.3B | $35.8B | 550.77 |
| 19 | Michael Dell | Dell Computers | $22.9B | $41.8B | $18.9B | 82.53 |
| 20 | Len Blavatnik | Access Industries | $17B | $31.7B | $14.7B | 86.47 |
Methodology: In order to find out how much the wealthiest 20 American billionaires “made” during COVID, CEOWORLD magazine first found the 20 wealthiest American billionaires in terms of (1) net worth as of January 21, 2021, from Forbes’ “Real-Time Billionaire” tracker. CEOWORLD magazine then found each of those 20 American billionaires net worth as of 03/18/2020, as sourced from Forbes’ “2020 Billionaire List.” From there, CEOWORLD magazine was able to calculate (3) the change in net worth (US dollar amount) from March 18, 2020, to Jan. 21, 2021, and (4) the percent change in net worth from March 18, 2020, to Jan. 21, 2021, for each billionaire. CEOWORLD magazine also found the source of wealth for all 20 richest American billionaires, all sourced from Forbes’ “Real-Time Billionaire” tracker. All data were collected on and up to date as of Jan. 21, 2021.
Notably, many of the billionaires on this list are associated with technology companies – and many of those companies have done especially well during the pandemic.
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