India’s largest conglomerate by market capitalisation has made donations worth $102.4 billion over the past century followed by Bill and Melinda Gates, who have made donations worth $74.6 billion, the first-ever Edelgive Hurun India Philanthropist of the Century list showed.
“Whilst American and European philanthropists may have dominated the thinking of philanthropy over the last century, Jamsetji Tata, founder of India’s Tata Group, is the world’s biggest philanthropist,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun Report in a press statement.
According to the report, philanthropists have made donations worth $832 billion over the past 100 years with $503 billion coming from foundation endowments and $329 billion coming from donations.
The US topped the list with 39 philanthropists, followed by the UK with five, China with three, India with two and Portugal and Switzerland with one each, the report said.
“Today’s billionaires are not keeping up with philanthropy, making money much faster than they are giving it away,” the report said.
The pandemic has accelerated the wealth gap between the world’s haves and have nots over the past year. The speed of wealth creation has been nothing short of staggering added by a raging global equity bull market.
Three individuals added more than $50 billion in a single year, led by Elon Musk with $151 billion, on the back of the rise of e-cars, whilst e-commerce billionaires Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Colin Huang of Pinduoduo added $50 billion each.
“At this rate, expect to see fifty or more break through the $100 billion-mark within the next five years,” Hoogewerf said.
Another measure of the surge in global wealth is that over 1,000 new dollar billionaires were created in the past year, taking the total to 7,500. That is when Hurun Report said that one can assume that for every one billionaire they found they missed another.
“We have found 696 billionaires in the USA, for example, suggesting the true number should be at least double that, perhaps as many as 1,500. In China, we have found over 1000, but the actual number is probably closer to 2,500,” Hoogewerf said.
