Bernard Arnault, the chairman of French luxury goods company LVMH, has surpassed Elon Musk to become the world’s richest person, according to Forbes’ World’s Billionaires List 2023.
Arnault’s net worth increased by $50 billion to $211 billion, while Musk’s net worth slipped by about $39 billion to $180 billion. Arnault and Musk have often traded places on the Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires list. This is the first time a French citizen has led the World’s Billionaires ranking since its inception in 1987.
According to Forbes, the 74-year-old CEO of LVMH, the parent company of over 70 high-end brands like Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Tiffany’s, Marc Jacobs, Sephora, Fenty Beauty and more, added a whopping $53 billion to his net worth over the past 12 months — the largest jump of any billionaire this year, Forbes reported.
Arnault claimed Musk’s number-one spot in last year’s list with $31 billion more than the 51-year-old SpaceX CEO.
For the past three years, he has been third on the Billionaires list behind Musk and Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos.
The Frenchman first made the Forbes list in 1997 when he was worth $3.1 billion and rose through the ranks in the years following until he hit the top five richest people in 2011.
He has been the head of LVMH for roughly three decades and helped grow the luxury goods company’s revenue from $4 billion in 1989 to $86 billion last year, according to the outlet. Stock in the company soared 35% over the past year.
Arnault has maintained loyal customers through long-standing and respected design houses like Louis Vuitton and Dior while expanding the company with new modern brands like Rhianna’s Fenty Beauty which launched in 2019.
The septuagenarian is preparing for succession and named one of his five children, his 47-year-old daughter Delphine Arnault, CEO of Dior in January.
