Bernard Arnault: What You Should Know About The European Luxury Mogul Who Has Overtaken Elon Musk As World's Richest Person

Bernard Arnault on Tuesday dethroned Tesla CEO Elon Musk to become the World’s richest man after his net wealth topped $171 billion. 

What Happened: The French business magnate became the first person in Europe to lay claim to having the largest fortune on the planet after gaining a whopping $4.13 billion in a day, Bloomberg’s Billionaire List stated.

The 73-year-old chairman of luxury brand Louis Vuitton‘s parent company, LVMH LVMUY, has been less active on social media, unlike his peers, and makes very rare public appearances. 

See Also: 5 Things You Might Not Know About Bernard Arnault, The World’s Richest Person

Born in France in 1949, Arnault joined his family’s industrial construction business after graduating from an elite engineering school. He later moved to the U.S. in 1981 and started a property development business before moving back to France to start his luxury goods brand three years later.

Today, Arnault’s luxury-goods conglomerate has 75 brands ranging from Dom Perignon to Christian Dior to Tiffany & Co. to Louis Vuitton.

The billionaire has overseen his conglomerate’s rapid expansion into a global empire. Despite his low profile, his success has made him one of the most influential and powerful figures in the business world.

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Similar to many of his peers, Arnault’s wealth also bore the brunt of weakening markets — plunging his fortune down about $7.2 billion in 2022 — but he fared better than other tech billionaires, including Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. 

Arnault’s Paris-based LVMH generated €64 billion ($68 billion) in sales last year, which was a sharp rebound since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The French billionaire and his family own about 48% of the shares in the company, with 64% of the voting rights, according to the LVMH annual report. 

Arnault had to recently sell his private jet to stop Twitter users from tracking his travels.

Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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