Luxury goods mogul Bernard Arnault is now the richest man in the world, bumping Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk down to the second spot, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Arnault, who is chairman and chief executive of Louis Vuitton SE or LVMH (LVMUY), has seen more than a $7 billion loss in net worth in 2022 while LVMH stock is off roughly 6.58% during the same time period. It hasn’t been enough to keep him from taking the top spot, though, given that Musk’s net worth has plummeted more than $100 billion in 2022.
The French businessman has a net worth of $171 billion, which is more than 5% of France’s economy, compared to a net worth $164 billion for Musk.
He joined his family’s construction business in 1971 and moved to the U.S. in 1981 when the socialists came to power in France.
Back then, he was considered a “a little-known real-estate developer trying to expand his venerable French family’s influence in New Rochelle, N.Y,” according to a New York Times article from 1989. Arnault entered the luxury market in 1984 with an acquisition of a near-bankrupt French textile company that owned Christian Dior.
He later sold the company’s other businesses and used the money to buy a controlling stake in LVMH, which was at that point a merger between Louis Vuitton and champagne and cognac maker Moët Hennessy.
Arnault then ousted the Louis Vuitton president and took over, a strategy he repeated over the years. The luxury goods conglomerate owns Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, and more.
In January 2021, LVMH acquired jewelry company Tiffany & Co. for $15.8 billion.
Who is Bernard Arnault? The ‘wolf in cashmere’ passes Elon Musk as world’s richest person
Luxury goods mogul Bernard Arnault is now the richest man in the world, bumping Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk down to the second spot, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Arnault, who is chairman and chief executive of Louis Vuitton SE or LVMH (LVMUY), has seen more than a $7 billion loss in net worth in 2022 while LVMH stock is off roughly 6.58% during the same time period. It hasn’t been enough to keep him from taking the top spot, though, given that Musk’s net worth has plummeted more than $100 billion in 2022.
The French businessman has a net worth of $171 billion, which is more than 5% of France’s economy, compared to a net worth $164 billion for Musk.
He joined his family’s construction business in 1971 and moved to the U.S. in 1981 when the socialists came to power in France.
Back then, he was considered a “a little-known real-estate developer trying to expand his venerable French family’s influence in New Rochelle, N.Y,” according to a New York Times article from 1989.
French luxury group LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault attends an LVMH event in Paris on May 16, 2022. (Photo by Eric PIERMONT/AFP)
He later sold the company’s other businesses and used the money to buy a controlling stake in LVMH, which was at that point a merger between Louis Vuitton and champagne and cognac maker Moët Hennessy.
Arnault then ousted the Louis Vuitton president and took over, a strategy he repeated over the years. The luxury goods conglomerate owns Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, and more.
In January 2021, LVMH acquired jewelry company Tiffany & Co. for $15.8 billion.
LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton, Société Européenne (LVMUY)
While his “brash American-style” approach to business was criticized by the French press in the past, he’s described by The Telegraph as a man of refined taste: He’s a classical pianist, an art collector, and a noted philanthropist. The French billionaire donated roughly $212 million in 2019 to help rebuild the Notre Dame in Paris after it endured a massive fire.
And unlike Musk, Arnault prefers to stay under the radar. After some Twitter accounts started tracking private planes of French billionaires to raise climate change awareness, Arnault elected to sell his private jet.
“Indeed, with all these stories, the group had a plane and we sold it,” Arnault told an LVMH-owned radio station. “The result now is that no one can see where I go because I rent planes when I use private planes.”
