American businessman Elon Musk is still a billionaire.
Only this week he lost the title of the richest man in the world, according to the business magazine Forbes.
The golden title is now held by another French businessman much less media-focused than Musk, according to
the magazine's "real-time
ranking of billionaires."
This is
Bernard Arnault, 73
, the president and co-owner (along with his family) of the luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, the parent company of major brands such as Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Fendi, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, as well as the popular chain of makeup and perfume stores Sephora, among many others.
Bernard Arnault, 73, owns 60% of the shares of the luxury brand conglomerate LVMH.Getty Images
Arnault
owns 60% of the shares of the conglomerate
, whose price rose steeply on the stock market this week at the same time that shares of Tesla, Musk's company, fell sharply.
The Frenchman's fortune is now estimated at
$186.2 billion
, while the American's is valued at
$181 billion.
In 2021, Forbes reported that Elon Musk, who also owns Twitter and SpaceX, had surpassed Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, as the richest man in the world.
An engineer by profession determined to create an empire of luxury brands
Bernard Arnault has dedicated the last four decades of his life to building an empire of luxury brands, acquiring different fashion houses, year after year.
According to Vanity Fair magazine, Arnault changed the company's rules that established that the retirement age for his position was 75 years.
He is now 80, which could indicate that the businessman is in no rush to retire.
The tycoon is originally from the Roubaix region, in the south of France, and studied engineering at one of the most prestigious universities in that country, the École Polytechnique.
He began his working life in his father's construction company.
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In the 1984s, Arnault began acquiring high fashion houses, Christian Dior being one of the first.
Then came the exclusive Celine and others.
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His empire also includes his five children, the product of two marriages.
According to Vanity Fair magazine, her daughter Delphine, executive vice president of Louis Vuitton and the businessman's right hand, is projected as the next leader of the conglomerate.
Involved in a tax scandal
But not everything has been success for Bernard Arnault.
The now richest man in the world was embroiled in
the 2017 Paradise Papers scandal
, when an investigation revealed that members of the global elite moved billions of dollars in tax havens in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
According to a publication in the French newspaper Le Monde, in that year Arnault owned a luxurious house in England through a holding company known for its tax breaks.
At the time, the businessman said the property had been declared to both the French and British tax authorities and was subject to wealth tax in France.