Bernard Arnault, billionaire chairman and CEO of global luxury goods company LVMH, has again beaten Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, to emerge the richest man in the world.
This was revealed by Forbes real-time billionaires list, adding that Arnault’s net worth skyrocketed to $207.8 billion, $3.3 billion higher than Musk’s.
It disclosed that Arnault and his family’s net worth increased to $207.8 billion after a $23.6 billion rise on Friday, passing Musk’s $204.5 billion.
Meanwhile, Musk’s Tesla struggled in the stock market on Thursday, plummeting 13%, the X owner losing more than $18 billion in net worth, according to reports.
However, LVMH shares soared on Friday morning passing 13%.
The market cap of LVMH reached $388.8 billion on Friday, compared to Tesla’s $586.14 billion market cap.
In 2021, LVMH acquired Tiffany & Co. for nearly $16 billion—considered the largest luxury brand acquisition ever.
The 74-year-old Frenchman’s holding company Agache supports a venture capital firm called Aglaé Ventures, which Forbes reports invested in businesses like Netflix and ByteDance—the parent company of TikTok.
Last week, Arnault appointed two of his sons – Alexandre Arnault and Frédéric Arnault to the LVMH board.
While he nominated the 31-year-old Alexandre, as the executive vice president of product and communications at Tiffany and Co., he selected the 29-year-old Frédéric for the post of the chief executive of Tag Heuer.
Arnault’s decision made the two children join other siblings – Delphine, 48, who is also chairman and chief executive of Christian Dior Couture, and Antoine, 46, who runs multiple LVMH brands and is in charge of the group’s image and sustainability efforts.
The youngest sibling, Jean, 25, is Louis Vuitton’s watch director.
The richest man affirmed that his company is a family business, saying, “As I have always said, LVMH is a family-run group.”
