Bernard Arnault dethrones Elon Musk as the richest man in the world

Tesla CEO Elon Muskis no longer the richest man in the world, after being ousted by the president and CEO of the luxury brand LVMHthe French Bernard Arnault.

Musk’s wealth has halved from its peak of $340 billion due to the financial impact of last October’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter, according to real-time rankings from Forbes.

Another reason is the fall in the price of the shares of the electric vehicle company -which on Monday closed with a drop of 6.27%-. Tesla has seen its value more than halved this year, after Musk sold 19.5 million shares in November for $3.95 billion to deal with the acquisition of the social network.

Musk now has a fortune of 181 million dollars compared to 191.1 million dollars accumulated by the Arnault family. The new richest man in the world oversees the LVMH empire that includes about 70 brands fashion and cosmetics -like Louis VuittonSephora and the American jeweler Tiffany & Co-.

Despite spending years at the top of the list, Arnault thus occupies the leadership of the world’s billionaires for the first time. A position that has been disputed in recent years between the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezoswho achieved it in 2017, and the co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gateswho has since only taken it from him in 2018. Musk got on the podium in 2021.

The Twitter owner’s wealth experienced a meteoric growth in 2020 after Tesla’s shares soared more than 100% in two years. Musk holds 14.11% of Tesla’s shares, with a market value of $530 billion. And more than 40% of the shares of SpaceX, adding billions to his net worth. Last week he already fell for a short period of time to second place on the list conquered by the French.