French tycoon Bernard Arnault, is the man behind the luxury fashion empire LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which holds over 70 brands such as Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Sephora and Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty.
Arnault was born to an industrial family in Roubaix, France. After beginning his professional career as an engineer, he became chairman in 1978.
In 1984, Arnault undertook the reorganisation of the Financière Agache holding company and “returned the group to profitability as he embarked upon a strategy of developing the world’s leading luxury products company. In the process, he reinvigorated Christian Dior as the cornerstone of the new organisation,” according to the LVMH website.
Arnault bagged the title of the world’s richest man after surpassing Elon Musk – the owner of Tesla, Space X and Twitter – on Tuesday.
Musk, worth $181.3 billion when the markets closed on Monday, saw $7.4 billion plummet in a day, causing Arnault, who is valued at $186.2 billion, to gain momentum on the Forbes rich list.
This is also the first time Arnault topped the list of the wealthiest people. He is also the first person from France – or Europe as a whole – to own the largest fortune.
Musk’s wealth is mostly tied to Tesla stock, which was driven by a rise in the carmaker’s share price, showing over 1,000 percent in two years.
Musk’s wealth has fallen sharply this year, due to a drop in tech stocks, Tesla investors dumping shares as he overtook Twitter as chief in October. He has also openly fired former Twitter employees, reinstated banned users such as Kanye West and Donald Trump. Musk also made headlines when he asked US medical adviser Anthony Fauci to be “prosecuted”.
Musk in a tweet on Sunday called for Fauci to be prosecuted. “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” he wrote.
An earlier tweet Sunday also targeted Fauci with a meme about lockdowns, which aimed to minimise transfer of the virus by closing many in-person businesses and schools early in the pandemic.
Musk, who has styled himself as a champion of free speech, has rattled advertisers with his comments on Twitter and moves to change the social media platform’s content moderation policies.
On Sunday, Musk was also booed for several minutes when he joined comedian Dave Chappelle on stage at a comedy show in San Francisco.
Following Musk is the Indian chairman of Adani Group, Gautam Adani, followed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffet.
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