No. While billionaire wealth surged dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, it did not nearly triple in a single year.  Data from March 2020 to early 2021 show that the combined wealth of the world’s more than 2,500 billionaires rose from approximately $8 trillion to over $13 trillion, an increase of roughly 68%. This was due in part to a strong stock market, returns of profits to shareholders and, in the case of billionaires like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, a shift to online shopping during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the pandemic disproportionately affected ordinary people, pushing over 150 million more people into poverty, causing massive job losses and reducing women’s earnings by $800 billion in 2020.  Advocates and organizations like Oxfam have highlighted this disparity, calling for wealth taxes on pandemic-era gains to fund vaccinations, social protections and economic recovery, underscoring the extreme inequality exacerbated during the crisis. This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one. CT Mirror partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Sources Reuters Bezos, Musk top Forbes' record-setting billionaire listCBS News Billionaires got 54% richer during pandemic, sparking calls for "wealth tax"Oxfam International Ten richest men double their fortunes in pandemic while incomes of 99 percent of humanity fall ...read more read less