Billionaires, tennis and space travel - this newsletter has all the ingredients for an episode of a TV drama about an eccentric tech baron.

In totally unrelated news, did you know that Elon Musk’s Tesla released a premium pickleball paddle last month?

Billionaires across the world have recorded an “unprecedented” surge in wealth, according to a new report by not-for-profit organisation Oxfam.

Here’s a snapshot of what the analysis showed.

The report found global billionaire wealth grew by more than 16% last year, around three times faster than the average growth rate over the past five years.

Collectively, the world’s billionaires now hold $27.7 trillion in wealth, shared between just over 3,000 people. Forty-eight of them are Australians.

Elon Musk topped the global rich list, briefly becoming the first person to surpass a net worth of $US500 billion.

In Australia, the report found the average billionaire increased their wealth by almost $600,000 a day over the past year.

Together, Australia’s 48 billionaires now hold more wealth than the bottom 40% of the population — nearly 11 million people.

Oxfam also found that one Australian billionaire increased their wealth by the equivalent of more than 2,000 Australians’ annual incomes in a single year.

Australia’s richest man, property developer Harry Triguboff, was highlighted in the report. Oxfam estimates his wealth increase last year was equivalent to the cost of building almost 11,000 homes.

The findings come as Oxfam renews calls for governments to address rising inequality and reconsider tax settings that allow extreme wealth to accumulate at the top.

Reporting by Achol Arok.

Top players at this year’s Australian Open (AO) met over the weekend to discuss pushing for better pay and conditions at the tournament, according to reports from The Australian Financial Review.

AO leadership says they’re already paid fairly.

Here’s what to know.

The AO is Australia’s largest tennis tournament, held in Melbourne every year for two weeks in January.

This year’s tournament is underway, and will run until 1 February. 

More than a million people attended last year’s tournament, and 2026 is projected to be even bigger.

It is one of the sport’s four “Grand Slams”, alongside Wimbledon, the French Open, and the U.S. Open.

The AO recently announced the total prize pool for 2026 would be $111.5 million, up 16% from last year.

Both the men’s and women’s singles winners will earn $4.2 million each, 19% more than last year. 

According to the Australian Financial Review, the sport’s governing body, Tennis Australia (TA), earned a record of nearly $700 million in revenue last year. Sources told the AFR the bumper year has allowed the tournament to offer the record purse.

Despite these recent increases, many players argue it is not enough.

Two-time Grand Slam champion Coco Gauff said on Friday that the increase in prize money this year is welcome, but as a percentage of revenue, the prize is “not where we would like it.”

Gauff is one of a star-studded group calling for better conditions, including Australian Alex de Minaur, and last year’s AO winners Madison Keys and Jannik Sinner.

The Professional Tennis Players’ Association (PTPA) launched a lawsuit against the sport’s governing bodies last March, alleging they had collaborated to reduce player prize money. In September, the PTPA added the organisations behind the Grand Slams to the lawsuit. 

Just before the AO began, TA announced a settlement with the PTPA in which it acknowledged no wrongdoing, and which the PTPA said allows for greater consultation moving forward.

The remaining parties in the lawsuit are yet to reach settlement.

Players have previously said they want all Grand Slams to lift their prize pool to 22% of each tournament’s revenue by 2030. 

They argue the AO’s current prize pool is only 16% of what the tournament earns.

TA has pushed back on this claim, saying players are calculating their demands based on the group’s total annual earnings, not the revenue from the AO.

Players also want Grand Slams to contribute $US12 million each event to a welfare fund for pension, healthcare and maternity benefits.

The 2025 U.S. Open set the record for the richest in tennis history.

It offered $US90 million ($AU135 million) in prizes, an increase of 20% over the previous year. 

Meanwhile, the UK’s Wimbledon offered £53.5 million ($AU108 million) and the French Open awarded €56.35 ($AU98 million), both an annual increase of about 6%.

Each of these prize pools represent roughly 15% of the respective total tournament revenue, according to analysis from The New York Times. 

Reporting by Lachlan Keller.

Australian space start-up Gilmour Space Technologies has raised $217 million from investors, pushing its value to more than $1 billion.

That makes it Australia’s first space “unicorn”, which is just finance-speak for a private company that’s worth $1 billion or more (no, sadly, not a mythical horse situation).

The company’s CEO said: “We’ve reached important technical and business milestones. Our focus now is on delivering reliable and regular access to space for customers both at home and abroad.”

Any readers fancy a space orbit any time soon?