Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO is now a member of the $100 billion club. It makes Ballmer the ninth person to make it into the prestigious plateau with his net worth of over $100 billion. With this, Larry Ellison, the Oracle founder, dropped down to 10. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the Oracle founder has a net worth of $98.6 billion.
More about Steve Ballmer and others in the $100bn club
The 65-year-old may have stepped down as the CEO of Microsoft. However, he now owns the Los Angeles Clippers. The NBA team has increased Ballmer’s net worth by over $20 billion. Currently, the richest person in the world is Jeff Bezos. The ex-Amazon CEO has a record net worth of over $212 billion.
All nine members of the club together hoard close to $245 billion since the beginning of the year. However, now they collectively add up to . (https://www.newslive.com) 36 trillion. This group is mostly made up of Americans. Although, Bernard Arnault, the owner of French luxury goods is the only exception.
Tax charges and more baggage
The collection of such large amounts of wealth comes with high scrutiny and inequality. According to leaked data of tax returns, billionaires like Musk and Bezos have paid little to no amount of income tax. This also led to calls from many including Ron Wyden, the chairman of the senate finance committee and a Democrat from Oregon.
“The persistent lack of wealth for large shares of Americans is striking,” said Kenan Fikri, the director of research at Economic Innovation Group. “Markets are reaching historic highs but far too few people see any direct economic benefit from it,” he added. Additionally, President Biden is also pushing a broad tax change package It aims to force the wealthy to pay appropriate taxes. The president also plans to double the capital tax gains to 39.6 percent. Coupled with toughening of rules that govern vehicles and estates used to reduce taxes, major changes are on the way.
