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.
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.
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.
