Bernard Arnault pulls ahead of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk on world’s richest billionaires list
French luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault and his family top the list of wealthiest billionaires — pulling ahead of runners up Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
Arnault, the patriarch of the family which oversees the Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy empire of brand🌄s that includes Sephora, Tiffany & Co., Christian Dior and Stella McCartney, boasts a fortune valued at $230 billion as of Monday,
The French titan, who is the only non-American on the list of the top 10 wealthiest business leaders, has seen his wealth grow by nearl💎y $23 billion since the stꦆart of the year.
Arnault and his family control around half of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury maker which generated $93.2 billion in revenue last year.
Bezos, founder of e-commerce behemoth Amazon, is the second wealthiest person in the world.
His net worth was valued 💧by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $204 billion.
Bezos derives his wealth from his stake in Amazon, which amounts to around 12% of the company’s outstanding stock — equal to around 880 million shares.
Earlier this year, Bezos sold 50 million shares valued at around $8.5ﷺ billion.
His wealth was also boosted by the stock peꦯrformance of the ꦺcompany he founded.
Since Jan. 1, Amazon’s share price has risen by more than 20% — this despite intensifying competition in e-retail posed by overseas-based upstarts Shein and Temu.
Bezos jumped ahead of Musk on the billionaires list as Tesla’s stock has nosedived by more than 32% since the start of the year.
Musk’s electric car company has been weighed down by sagging demand as well as fierce competition from Chinese-based rival BYD.
Shares of Tesla fell by nearly 5% as of 2 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday after the company reported its first annual drop in sales since 2020 — the year that brought about the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
Tesla said that 🔯it built 433,000 cars last year but only managed to deliver 387,000 to customers.
Musk, the 52-year-old who previously reigned as the world’s wealthiest mogul, has been relegated to third on the list with a fortune valued by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $189 billion.
Aside from his 13% stake in Tesla, Musk also heads the social media platform X as well as rocket-building firm SpaceX, the tunnel-digging Boring Company and the brain chip startup Neur🎶alink.
Since Jan. 1, Musk has seen his fortune droꦉp by more than $40 billion.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is fourth on the list of billionaires, added more than $46.5 billion to his fortune thanks to his company’s robust third-quarter earnings report.
Since Jan. 1, Meta’s stock has jumped by more than 42% — giving Zuckerberg a net worth of $175 billion.
Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates ($154 billion) and Steve Ballmer ($147 billion) and Google co-founders Larry Page ($140 billion) and Sergey Brin ($133 billion) also made the top 10 — as did investor Warren Buffett ($139 billion) and software mogul Larry Ellison ($139 billion).