America's richest individuals are getting richer and showing no signs of slowing down during the pandemic . The trend is most prominent among the dozen wealthiest Americans, whose collective net worth passed US$1 trillion last week, according to a new analysis from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) using data from Forbes and Bloomberg's billionaire trackers. Elon Musk is now the 5th-wealthiest person in the world, so who’s richer? Since March 18, around the time the pandemic first started wreaking havoc on the US economy, the country's top 12 wealthiest people have seen their personal fortunes skyrocket alongside Covid-19 cases, raking in an additional US$283 billion – an increase of nearly 40 per cent – the IPS report found. The world’s 25 wealthiest family business empires ranked By comparison, US household wealth during the first quarter plummeted by 5.6 per cent, the largest drop since the 1950s, and more than half of US households have lost income this year. Wealth and income inequality in the US had already hit record highs before the pandemic. But in a sign that economic fallout from the coronavirus has further concentrated wealth at the top, data from the US Federal Reserve shows that the top one per cent of Americans actually saw their share of overall wealth in the US decrease from 29.3 per cent to 27.8 per cent during the first quarter of 2020, even as those at the very top saw massive gains. In particular, those gains have gone to the executives and founders of the largest US tech companies, which surged past Wall Street expectations last quarter despite declining revenues. Of the 12 wealthiest Americans included in IPS's analysis, eight hail from the tech industry. Which of these 11 self-made moguls became a billionaire fastest? They include Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (with a net increase since March of US$76.5 billion), Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (US$16.1 billion), Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (US$40.8 billion), Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk (US$48.5 billion), former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (US$18.8 billion), Oracle founder Larry Ellison (US$11.9 billion), and Google co-founders Larry Page (US$16.5 billion) and Sergey Brin (US$16.5 billion). 10 things you didn’t know about Google co-founder Sergey Brin While Bezos has been the biggest beneficiary of the pandemic in terms of largest net worth increase, Musk saw the highest percentage gains with a 228 per cent boost, taking his personal fortune from US$24.6 billion pre-pandemic to US$73.1 billion as of August 13, according to IPS. Musk's wealth climbed another US$8 billion in August as Tesla stock soared to an all-time high, making him the fourth wealthiest person in the world. How Mukesh Ambani’s family became India’s very own national icons Others on IPS' list included Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett (US$13.1 billion increase), and Walmart heirs Alice Walton (US$8.2 billion), Jim Walton (US$7.7 billion), and Rob Walton (US$7.9 billion). Want more stories like this? Sign up here . Follow STYLE on Facebook , Instagram , YouTube and Twitter . This article originally appeared in Business Insider .