Elon Musk Is Not The Richest Person In The World Anymore; Luxury Brand Mogul Overtakes Tesla CEO
A luxury brand mogul from France has secured the top spot on the updated billionaires list.
Per Forbes' real-time billionaires list, Bernard Arnault of the LVMH empire is now the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $210.3 billion.
Arnault and his family beat Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who has a net worth of $196.8 billion, forcing the latter to settle in the second spot on the list as of Tuesday.
Elon's fortune reportedly took a heavy hit after Tesla lost a staggering $200 billion in market value in January, according to Fortune.
World's top luxury group LVMH head Bernard Arnault presents the group's annual results 2022 in Paris on January 26, 2023.
While the LVMH chairman and CEO's net worth experienced a 0.15% ($324 million) drop, he is still the richest person in the world.
The 74-year-old billionaire oversees 75 fashion and cosmetics brands, including Louis Vuitton and Sephora.
In 2021, Arnault's LVMH empire acquired Tiffany & Co for $15.8 billion, believed to be its biggest luxury brand acquisition ever.
He also has a holding company, Agache, backed by venture capital firm Aglaé Ventures, which has business investments in Netflix and ByteDance, among others.
From a net worth of $33.5 billion in 2014, Arnault managed to make it grow to $211 billion in 2023.
Arnault got his start by putting up $15 million from his father's wealth in construction and bought Christian Dior in 1984.
This combination of pictures created on October 10, 2023, shows (L) SpaceX, Twitter and electric car maker Tesla CEO Elon Musk during his visit at the Vivatech technology startups and innovation fair at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, on June 16, 2023 and (R) the new Twitter logo rebranded as X, pictured on a screen in Paris on July 24, 2023.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, did see growth in his net worth. It reportedly grew by 1.17% ($2.3 billion), but it was not enough to beat the Arnaults to the top of Forbes' real-time billionaires list.
In 2023, he was number one on the Forbes 400 and The Richest Person In Every State lists. From an $8.4 billion net worth in 2014, he experienced his peak in 2022 -- at $219 billion.
Musk is a co-founder of six companies, including Tesla, SpaceX and The Boring Company. He acquired Twitter, now known as X, in April 2022 for $44 billion. He owns an estimated 74% of the company.
Following Arnault and Musk's lead on the real-time billionaires list are Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Oracle's Larry Ellison, at the third to fifth spots, respectively.
