Fifteen years ago, the world’s billionaires collectively had $4.5 trillion.

15年前，全球亿万富翁的财富总和为4.5万亿美元。

By 2024, their wealth had more than tripled to $14.2 trillion.

到2024年，他们的财富增长了两倍多，达到14.2万亿美元。

Now, their combined wealth totals $20.1 trillion — an amount that is equivalent to nearly a fifth of the entire world’s total yearly output.

如今，他们的财富总和达到20.1万亿美元——几乎相当于全球经济全年总产出的近五分之一。

The stunning figures — calculated by the French economist Gabriel Zucman, director of the International Tax Observatory, a research organization funded by the European Union — reveal more than a surprisingly rapid increase in the concentration of wealth at the tippy top.

这些惊人数据——由欧盟资助的研究机构国际税收观察站主任、法国经济学家加布里埃尔·祖克曼计算得出——不仅揭示了财富在金字塔顶端惊人的快速集中，更反映了一系列重要的全球趋势。

They also reflect a series of important global trends: the growing dominance of a few technology companies leading artificial intelligence development; the shrinking slice of the economic pie that goes to workers; and a deepening inequality that will be handed down to the next generation.

它们还表明：主导人工智能发展的少数科技公司的日益垄断地位；分配给工人的经济蛋糕份额不断缩小；以及将传递给下一代的日益严重的贫富差距。

These developments are particularly prominent in the United States, where roughly one-third of the world’s nearly 3,000 billionaires reside — and perhaps the first trillionaire, Elon Musk, depending on how the initial public offering of his rocket and satellite company, SpaceX, goes on Friday.

这些发展在美国尤为突出——全球近3000名亿万富翁中约有三分之一居住在美国——而且可能出现全球首位万亿美元富豪，即埃隆·马斯克，这取决于他的火箭和卫星公司SpaceX周五的首次公开募股表现如何。

Their rising wealth, a 40 percent increase in just two years, has coincided with significant changes to U.S. tax laws over the last decade that largely benefited the country’s richest families and stockholders and led to an increase in their political influence.

他们的财富在短短两年内增长40%，与此同时，过去十年美国税法进行了一系列重大修改，这些修改主要有利于美国最富有的家族和股东，并导致他们的政治影响力增强。

Why have billionaires seen such a rapid rise in their wealth?

为什么亿万富翁的财富会出现如此迅猛的增长？

One reason for the sudden surge of growth at the peak of the wealth ladder is the boom in artificial intelligence, which has funneled trillions of dollars of capital investment into a small clutch of tech companies. Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, for example, are each worth more than $1 trillion. Their founders and early investors have reaped most of the financial gain.

财富阶梯顶端突然加速增长的一个重要原因是人工智能热潮，它将数万亿美元的资本投资注入到少数科技公司手中。例如，英伟达、苹果、微软、Alphabet、Meta和台积电，每家公司的市值都超过1万亿美元。他们的创始人和早期投资者获得了大部分财务收益。

We can see it happening with SpaceX’s public offering — set to be the biggest in history. The anticipated Day 1 valuation of the company, whose shares are expected to begin trading on Friday, aims for $1.77 trillion. With 42 percent of the stock, Mr. Musk is poised to become an instant trillionaire.

我们正通过SpaceX的公开募股看到这一过程——这将是历史上规模最大的IPO。该公司股份预计周五开始交易，首日目标估值达1.77万亿美元。马斯克持有42%的股份，有望瞬间成为万亿美元富豪。

It’s hard to wrap your head around such vast sums. But consider that only 21 countries in the world have economies that are able to produce enough annual output to reach the trillion-dollar mark.

如此庞大的数字很难让人理解。但请想想，全世界只有21个国家的经济体量能达到万亿美元的年度产出规模。

The stock market is where much of the billionaire alchemy happens. Soaring stock profits have been disproportionately captured by the richest sliver. Yes, you may have a stake in stock prices if you have a 401(k) retirement plan. And those nest eggs will help pay for housing, food, car, gas, electric and other bills when you stop working.

股市是亿万富翁“炼金术”发生的主要场所。飙升的股票收益被最富有的那一小部分人不成比例地攫取。当然，如果你有401(k)退休计划，你可能也从股价中受益。这些退休金将在你退休后用于支付住房、食品、汽车、汽油、电力等账单。

But it’s the top 1 percent of Americans who own half of all stock, according to data from the Federal Reserve. The top 0.1 percent of Americans — a group of about 135,000 households — own stocks that total $13.7 trillion. That is nearly double the $7.1 trillion owned by the bottom 90 percent of Americans, a group of about 115 million households.

但根据美联储数据，美国前1%的人口拥有全部股票的一半。前0.1%的人口（约13.5万户家庭）拥有的股票总价值达13.7万亿美元，几乎是下层90%美国人（约1.15亿户家庭）拥有的7.1万亿美元的两倍。

The tech firms that are playing an outsize part in generating those returns have created jobs — but so far the numbers of employees are relatively small. Billionaires’ returns are based on investments in capital much more than in those companies’ employees.

科技公司在这一进程中起到了格外大的作用，它们创造了就业岗位——但迄今为止雇员数量相对较少。亿万富翁的回报更多基于使用资本进行的投资，而非公司雇员。

马克·扎克伯格、杰夫·贝佐斯、桑达尔·皮查伊和埃隆·马斯克去年齐聚华盛顿。人工智能热潮已将数万亿美元的资本投入集中输送给了少数几家科技公司。

Inequality is growing.

不平等正在加剧。

The rise of billionaires is accelerating at the same time that workers are getting a smaller share of the wealth that national economies are creating.

亿万富翁的崛起加速的同时，工人从国家经济创造的财富中获得的份额却越来越小。

Financial assets have traditionally brought home bigger returns than a weekly paycheck. But since the early 2000s, the gap between the two has been growing. Economists point to several reasons: the declining power of labor unions’ bargaining power; the spread of automation, artificial intelligence and other technologies that can replace workers; the movement of manufacturing and other jobs to countries like China; and policies that tax wages much more heavily than income from investments.

金融资产带来的回报向来要高于工薪收入。但自2000年代初以来，两者之间的差距不断扩大。经济学家指出了几个原因：工会谈判力量下降；自动化、人工智能及其他可替代工人的技术普及；制造业和其他工作岗位转移到中国等国家；以及对工资征税远重于对投资收入征税的政策。

Another culprit, though, is the rise of what David Autor, an economist at M.I.T. and the faculty co-director of the Stone Center on Inequality and Shaping the Future of Work, and other economists have labeled superstar firms — behemoths that dominate sectors.

另一个罪魁祸首是麻省理工学院经济学家、斯通不平等与塑造未来工作中心联合主任戴维·奥特尔等人所称的“超级明星企业”——那些主导行业的巨无霸企业。

These businesses have shifted the balance of power in the economy, allowing owners rather than workers to gobble up more financial rewards.

这些企业改变了经济中的权力平衡，让所有者而非工人攫取了更多财务回报。

Superstar firms can also function like monopolies to set prices and keep down workers’ wages and benefits or impose uncomfortable working conditions.

超级明星企业还能像垄断者一样制定价格、压低工人工资和福利，或强加恶劣的工作条件。

Mr. Autor emphasized that many billionaire entrepreneurs have added enormous value to the economy. But he added that the way they have at times used their money to distort the political process can be “fundamentally corrosive.”

奥特尔强调，许多亿万富翁企业家为经济创造了巨大价值。但他也指出，他们有时利用金钱扭曲政治进程的方式可能“从根本上具有腐蚀性”。

“The problem is not necessarily with how the billions are earned,” he said, “but how that money distorts politics, and how our political process is increasingly a pay-to-play operation.”

“问题不一定在于这些巨额财富是如何赚取的，”他说，“而在于这些钱如何扭曲政治，以及我们的政治进程如何日益变成一种‘付费才能玩’的运作。”

Measuring inequality is difficult. There is a lot of debate about the precise size of the gap between those with the most and those with the least, as well as the degree to which labor’s share of the pie has declined. But there is general agreement among economists who study the issue that the wealthiest are pulling away from everyone else at a faster pace than before.

衡量不平等很困难。对于最富有者和最贫穷者之间的差距究竟有多大，以及劳动份额下降的程度，存在大量争议。但研究这一问题的经济学家普遍认为，最富有者正以前所未有的速度拉大与其他人之间的差距。

黄仁勋身家飙升至逾1500亿美元，这位英伟达首席执行官正坐拥极致财富与全球人工智能霸主地位的交汇点。

Tax policy plays a role in building billionaires’ wealth.

税收政策在亿万富翁财富积累中发挥了作用。

In the United States, changes in the tax laws over the past 10 years have steered more benefits to the wealthiest sliver of households, reducing the amount of taxes they have to pay.

在美国，过去10年的税法修改将更多好处导向最富有的那一小部分家庭，降低了他们需缴纳的税款。

A drastic reduction in the corporate tax rate has supercharged the wealth of the ultrarich, enabling them to double down on their gains as corporations use the increased profits to buy back their stock.

公司税率的大幅降低极大地增强了超级富豪的财富，使他们能够通过公司用增加的利润回购股票来进一步放大收益。

The reduction in taxes owed by corporations and the wealthy increases the tax burden on workers, who pay both income and payroll taxes — two types of tax that barely scratch billionaire wealth. It also reduces the public revenue available to pay for health, education, defense, infrastructure and other public benefits at a time when governments are in deep debt.

企业和富人应缴税款的减少加重了工人的税收负担——工人需缴纳所得税和薪酬税，而这两种税几乎触及不到亿万富翁的财富。这还在政府已经债台高筑之时，减少了用于支付医疗、教育、国防、基础设施和其他公共福利的公共收入。

The mind-busting fortunes have stirred some political support for wealth taxes. The idea was embraced at the Global Inequality Conference in Paris last week. Proposals for wealth taxes have been debated most seriously in France, but also in Germany, Britain, Brazil and the United States.

这些令人瞠目结舌的巨额财富引发了一些对财富税的政治支持。上周在巴黎举行的全球不平等会议上，这一理念得到拥护。法国对财富税的提议辩论最为深入，德国、英国、巴西和美国也有相关讨论。

In California, where more than 200 billionaires live, union leaders helped put the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act on the November ballot. It would impose a one-time tax of 5 percent on a billionaire’s net worth.

在拥有超过200名亿万富翁的加州，工会领袖推动将2026年亿万富翁税法案纳入11月的选票中。该法案将对亿万富翁的净资产征收一次性5%的税收。

The measure, constructed with input from Mr. Zucman and Emmanuel Saez, another economist who has been at the forefront of research on global wealth and inequality, was based on calculations that found California billionaires’ wealth exceeds $2 trillion today — an amount that equals half of what all of the California economy produces in a year. From 2023 to 2025, the wealth of the state’s billionaires grew 144 percent.

该措施在祖克曼和另一位全球财富与不平等研究前沿经济学家伊曼纽尔·赛斯参与下制定，基于计算显示：加州亿万富翁目前的财富超过2万亿美元——相当于加州全年经济产出的一半。从2023年到2025年，该州亿万富翁的财富增长了144%。

They point out that the surging financial and political power of a few hundred individuals contributes to a growing inequality that is likely to persist for generations because most of that wealth escapes taxation, creating a self-perpetuating aristocracy.

他们指出，少数几百名个人的金融和政治权力的激增加剧了可能持续几代人的不平等，因为这些财富大多避开了税收，造就了一个自我延续的贵族阶层。

As Dario Amodei, the billionaire chief executive of Anthropic, the maker of the chatbot Claude, wrote this year: “We are already at historically unprecedented levels of wealth concentration,” adding that “the thing to worry about is a level of wealth concentration that will break society.”

正如人工智能聊天机器人Claude的开发商Anthropic的亿万富翁首席执行官达里奥·阿莫代伊今年所说：“我们已经处于历史上前所未有的财富集中水平，”他补充说，“需要担心的是那种会摧毁社会的财富集中程度。”