When people envision billionaires, they may think of the young tech founder stereotype launching unicorn companies left and right. Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Mark Zuckerberg are all within their forties and fifties, but they’re considered youthful when it comes to the exclusive club of the world’s upper-class.
And though many of the ultrawealthy could afford to spend their days playing golf or tending to their rose gardens, some aging billionaires are still clocking in to their offices.
This may all be good news for some millennials and Gen Xers who are about to benefit from one of the greatest wealth transfers in history. With the oldest generation of workers staying employed for longer, that pot will only get bigger.
The oldest working cohort were, at their peak, the largest living generation in the history of the world, snatching up property and investing in the booming stock market to amass their fortunes. Their families can expect to inherit the majority of this wealth, about $105 trillion, with just $18 trillion estimated to go to charity.
More than half of the overall total volume of transfers, $62 trillion, is expected to come from the highest echelons of society, many of whom are billionaires and the ultrawealthy.
For those lucky 2% of all households, the report found that millennials will inherit the most over the next 25 years, around $46 trillion.
