The combined fortunes of the world's five richest men have more than doubled since 2020, while 5 billion people have been made poorer, anti-poverty organization Oxfam International said Monday, noting the world could have its first trillionaire within a decade.

Oxfam's annual assessment of global inequalities timed to the gathering of political and business elites at the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

The organization, which for years has been trying to highlight the growing disparities between the super-rich and the bulk of the global population during the World Economic Forum's annual meeting, reckons the gap has been "supercharged" since the coronavirus pandemic.

The group said the fortunes of the five richest men – Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault and his family of luxury company LVMH, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Oracle founder Larry Ellison and investment guru Warren Buffett – have spiked by 114% in real terms since 2020, when the world was reeling from the pandemic.

Oxfam's interim executive director said the report showed that the world is entering a "decade of division."

"We have the top five billionaires, they have doubled their wealth. On the other hand, almost 5 billion people have become poorer," Amitabh Behar said in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, where the forum's annual meeting takes place this week.

"Very soon, Oxfam predicts that we will have a trillionaire within a decade," Behar said, referring to a person who has a thousand billion dollars. "Whereas to fight poverty, we need more than 200 years."

If someone does reach that trillion-dollar milestone – and it could be someone not even on any list of richest people right now – he or she would have the same value as oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

To calculate the top five richest billionaires, Oxfam used figures from Forbes as of November 2023. Their total wealth then was $869 billion, up from $340 billion in March 2020, a nominal increase of 155%.

For the bottom 60% of the global population, Oxfam used figures from the UBS Global Wealth Report 2023 and from the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2019. Both used the same methodology.

John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil fame is widely considered to have become the world's first billionaire in 1916.

Currently, Musk is the richest man on the planet, with a personal fortune of just under $250 billion, according to Oxfam, which used figures from Forbes.

By contrast, the organization said nearly 5 billion people have been made poorer since the pandemic, with many of the world's developing nations unable to provide the financial support that richer nations could during lockdowns.

In addition, Oxfam said Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which sent energy and food costs soaring, disproportionately hit the poorest nations.

With Brazil hosting this year's G-20 summit of leading industrial and developing nations, Lawson said it was a "good time for Oxfam to raise awareness" about inequalities. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has put issues that concern the developing world at the heart of the G-20 agenda.

The report found that a billionaire is now either running or is the main shareholder of, seven out of 10 of the world's biggest companies.

Oxfam called for governments to rein in corporate power by breaking up monopolies, instituting taxes on excess profit and wealth, and promoting alternatives to shareholder control such as forms of employee ownership.

It estimated that 148 top corporations made $1.8 trillion in profits, 52% up on a three-year average, allowing hefty pay-outs to shareholders even as millions of workers faced a cost of living crisis as inflation led to wage cuts in real terms.

Nearly 800 million workers saw their wages over the past two years fail to keep up with inflation, resulting on average in the equivalent of 25 days of lost annual income per worker, according to Oxfam's analysis.

Of the world's 1,600 largest corporations, just 0.4% of them have publicly committed to paying workers a living wage and to supporting a living wage in their value chains, the study found.

"Corporate power is used to drive inequality: by squeezing workers and enriching wealthy shareholders, dodging taxes and privatizing the state," Oxfam said.

It also accused corporations of driving "inequality by undertaking a sustained and highly effective war on taxation," with far-reaching consequences.

Oxfam said states handed power over to monopolies, allowing corporations to influence the wages people are paid, food prices and which medicines individuals can access.

"Around the world, members of the private sector have relentlessly pushed for lower rates, more loopholes, less transparency and other measures aimed at enabling companies to contribute as little as possible to public coffers," Oxfam added.

The charity said thanks to intensive lobbying over tax policymaking, corporations have been able to pay lower corporate taxes, thereby depriving governments of money that could be used to financially support the poorest in society.

Corporate taxes have significantly dropped in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries from 48% in 1980 to 23.1% in 2022, Oxfam noted.

To address the imbalance, Oxfam called for a wealth tax on the world's millionaires and billionaires that it says could bring in $1.8 trillion each year.

The charity also called to cap CEO pay and break up private monopolies.