Bernard Arnault, Man Who Moved from textile business To overthrow Elon Musk as world’s richest man
- Elon Musk is longer the world’s richest person, having been displaced by a French billionaire, Bernard Arnault
- Arnault began his life in the family business in 1978 and became its chairman after a series of promotions
- He later acquired a stake in the luxury brand, Christian Dior and renamed it Dom Perignon
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This week Bernard Arnault, the Chairman of French luxury goods dealers LVMH, overthrew Elon Musk as the world’s richest person.
His net worth surged to $171 billion, eclipsing Elon Musk's $164 billion on Tuesday, December 13, 2022, Bloomberg Billionaires Index says.
Source: Getty Images
Arnault had previously displaced Elon Musk from Forbes's list of Real-Time Billionaires last week.
The Tesla CEO’s wealth has plummeted by $107 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaire Index. Arnault’s wealth, which comes mostly from his stakes in LVMH has lost just a $7 billion decline.
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The difference is mostly due to the performance of the stock of the firms in which the duo own shares. Musk hasn’t faired better after acquiring Twitter.
But he sits comfortably at the number two spot followed by an Indian businessman, Gautam Adani ($126 billion) and Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos ($116 billion) who are third and fourth respectively on the Index.
Tesla’s share price has fallen 54 per cent this year, but Arnault’s stock has remained steady and robust in the US and Europe as the luxury market surged despite inflation
CNN reports that Bernard was born in the north of France in 1949 and graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, an engineering school in Paris.
He began his career in the family’s construction company, Ferret-Savinel and became its chairman in 1978 after being promoted several times.
The rise to wealth
Six years later, he heard that the French government was searching for a new investor to take over Boussac Saint-Freres, a bankrupt textile group. The company owned assets in Christian Dior, a renowned fashion house.
Arnault bought ownership of the ground and turned it around and embarked on a plan to develop the leading luxury goods firm.
He revived Christian Dior as the cornerstone of the business, his biography on the LVMH website said.
He bought the majority stake in LVMH in 1989, two years after the group was started through the merger of Louis Vuitton and Moet Hennessy. He remains the chairman and CEO of the company ever since.
Under Arnault’s leadership, the brands he grew became instrumental from turning Christian Dior into Dom Perignon, now a household name.
In the last 30 years, Arnault has reinvigorated LVMH into a luxury goods powerhouse with 75 labels selling wine, spirits, jewellery, luxury travel and hotel stays.
The group completed its $15.8 billion takeover of US Jeweller, Tiffany & Co, the luxury industry’s biggest-ever acquisition.
His family life
Arnault is also a philanthropic, donating $212 million to help rebuild Notre Dame after it was ripped by fire in 2019.
Arnault has been Europe’s richest person, but he keeps a low profile and is not personally active on social media.
In October of this year, he said he sold his private jet to avoid being tracked after he was outed for his frequent use of the aeroplane.
The billionaire is married and has five children, all of whom work at LVMH or one of its brands, Bloomberg says.
Elon Musk loses world’s richest man title to French billionaire as worth drops by N1.6tn in Hours
Legit.ng previously reported that Elon Musk, Twitter and Tesla CEO, briefly lost his title as the world's richest person today, according to the Forbes list that tracks the wealth of the world's billionaires in real-time.
With US tech stocks sliding as interest rates and recession fears rise, Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of luxury brand Louis Vuitton's parent company LVMH, and his family briefly took the title as the world's richest.
However, by 5.30 p.m on Wednesday, 7 December 2022, Musk was back on top, but with a $3.8 billion (N1.6 trillion) loss, the most for the day among listed billionaires, Reuters reports.
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