A list of billionaires: The ones who got richer during the pandemic

Quiet down, peasants: we’d like to announce an update on your overload’s finances. Make a stiff drink and sit down, because these ultra-wealthy individuals have made more today than we will our entire lives. To boot, since this global pandemic what-have-you these billionaires have made even more money than during the boring old days when strangers could high-five in public.

Jeff Bezos is the champion of internetland

Amazon was uniquely positioned to profit from the pandemic and the policies that ensued. Although it was hard to guess the entire globe would be put in timeout, Bezos must have been full of glee when we were all sent into lockdown. 

Shares in Amazon have surged to new highs, growing Bezos’s fortune from $167.7 billion in 2018 to $171.6 billion in 2020. Since the onset of coronavirus, Bezos has gained $56.7 billion.

Mark Zuckerberg probably hates #StopHateForProfit more than coronavirus 

While sitting at home eating chips and shopping on Amazon, why not check out what’s on Facebook? Since March, Mark Zuckerberg made over $25 billion from increased traffic on Facebook. 

Unfortunately for Zuck, Facebook has come under criticism for providing space to those with extremist views. Advertisers started pulling ads from Facebook a few days ago in response to the #StopHateForProfit campaign.

Elon Musk continues to make money doing whatever the hell he’s doing over there

We silly earthlings are worrying about some virus affecting the human species, but meanwhile Elon Musk is launching rockets into the ether – presumably to tell his buddies where the party’s at. Since March, Musk’s net worth has increased by 48%. Musk’s current net worth is estimated at $46.3 billion, which he will likely reinvest by wrapping the planet in over 3000 satellites and putting microchips in our brains. 

Walmart would like you to continue freaking out, please 

As we were busy buying eight tons of toilet paper and truckloads of Doritos, the Walton family was counting their money from all our silly panic purchases. The Waltons are one of the richest non-royal families in the world, heirs to the Walmart fortune, which has grown from $304 billion in 2019 to a peak of $374 billion in 2020.

Why is everyone talking about moving so fast, why do they always have to Zoom?

A new entrant on the list of people to resent for having better financial plans than just joining an MLM is Zoom founder Eric Yuan. From February to April of 2020, the Zoom CEO has made nearly $4 billion as more people start to work from home. We seriously doubt our grandmas would have heard of Zoom if it wasn’t for this pandemic, but Mr. Yuan must be pumped grandma is onboard finally.    

Million to billions to trillions to babadaboullions, the numbers keep going up

Forbes had listed the number of American billionaires in March at 614, and in May that number had grown by 16 to 630. If in just three months we can get 16 new billionaires in the USA, then who knows how many more billionaires there will be by the time all this over.     

Although this might be astonishing to most, this list is only a small fraction of the new wealth that has been generated in Coronaland. In addition to other legitimate companies seeing an increase in their profits, such as Microsoft, Apple, and Verizon, there have been countless others that have profited from people’s miseries. 

The mobsters slinging facemasks have likely already been busted and paid their profits back, but the people on this list have enough skilled tax advice to not be stuck with a bill. As the pandemic continues to push people’s finances to the limit, it only seems natural that these people would also see a decline in their wealth, but unfortunately money doesn’t work that way.