Wealthiest Virginia Billionaires Got Richer During COVID Pandemic

VIRGINIA — A financial think tank recently released an analysis on the growth of billionaire wealth, which found that after seeing their fortunes steadily rise over the past three decades, the ultra-rich saw their money explode during the coronavirus pandemic.

Americans for Tax Fairness found the combined wealth of billionaires in America jumped from $2.95 trillion to $4.56 trillion from March 18, 2020, to April 12, 2021. That’s an increase of $1.62 trillion, or 55 percent.

This “perversely accelerated” growth of fortunes of people who are already filthy rich came as more than 77 million Americans lost their jobs and more than 30 million Americans became sick with COVID-19, the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group said in a news release.

The report comes a week after the release of Forbes' World’s Billionaires List, which named 2,755 billionaires from across the globe and saw 660 new names added to the list. Around 86 percent of those named on the Forbes list are richer today than they were before the pandemic.

Billionaires in Virginia whose wealth increased substantially during the pandemic include:

• Jacqueline Mars, candymaker Mars Inc., $31.3 billion, increase of 26.9%
• Pamela Mars, Mars Inc., family fortune, $7.8 billion, up 25.5%
• Daniel D'Aniello, Carlyle Group, $3.8 billion, up 35.7%
• Winifred Johnson-Marquart, SC Johnson family fortune, $3.6 billion, up 8.6%
• William Conway Jr., Carlyle Group, $3.4 billion, up 29.1%
• Steve Case, founder of AOL, and his investment company, Revolution, $1.5 billion, up 5.7%

Both Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington Football Team, and Theodore Leonsis, owner of Monumental Sports including the Washington Wizards and Capitals, lost wealth, the study showed. Both men live in Maryland, and remain on the Forbes billionaire list.

The report also pointed out the explosion occurred on top of a 19-fold increase in wealth that billionaires have been experiencing for more than 31 years.

The combined wealth of billionaires in 1990 was just $240 billion, after adjusting for inflation, and the number of billionaires in the United States was smaller. Only 66 people in the country were considered billionaires in 1990. Now there are 719 — a majority of whom come from either the finance or tech industries.

Of those 719 billionaires, only six are considered “centi-billionaires” — people whose net worth is at least $100 billion.

• Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, saw his wealth increase by 74 percent during the pandemic and his net worth balloon to $197 billion.
• Elon Musk, founder and CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, saw his wealth shoot up by 599 percent in the last year, which boosted his net worth to $172 billion.
• Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, saw a 33 percent gain as his wealth rose to $130 billion.
• Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, saw his wealth rise by 108 percent to $113.5 billion.
• Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, became 50 percent richer in the last year as his wealth rose to $101 billion.
• Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, saw a 71 percent jump in his wealth that brought his net worth to $101 billion.

Americans for Tax Fairness endorses President Joe Biden’s tax plan, which would raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent and punish U.S. companies that move their headquarters outside the country for tax purposes.

The group said billionaires would indirectly pay more in taxes, as their wealth is mostly made up in corporate stock.

“It’s not just during the pandemic — billionaires have been running up the score on average Americans for decades,” Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, said in a statement. “The way to reverse this trend is by making sure the wealthy, and the corporations they own, start paying their fair share of taxes. President Biden is proposing to do just that so we can finally build an economy that works for working families.”