Elon Musk is no longer the richest man in the world. He was until last Tuesday, December 13, the date on which he gave up first place in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index a bernard arnault. Musk has fun tweeting, frequently seeks media exposure and has a fortune from his business in the tech world. Arnold is not a fan of social networks, he prefers to avoid public appearances and made his empire thanks to the luxury industry.
Now that Musk has left the top millionaire position for the fashion mogul, we might think that Arnault increased his wealth in 2022 to climb the ranks. Nothing is further from reality. Both businessmen experienced billion-dollar drops in their assets, but those of the new owner of Twitter were so pronounced that they ended up wiping out much of his fortune. However, he is still occupying the not inconsiderable second place.
Arnault “wins” with the fall of Musk
According to the aforementioned Bloomberg indexMusk has seen how 138,000 million dollars have vanished of his assets in 2022. The businessman of South African origin held 270,000 million dollars at the beginning of this year, but his fortune has been reduced to 132,000 million at the close of the market on December 28. These values translate into 51.11% less value of the set of assets related to the CEO of Tesla.
As we can see, the fortunes of billionaires are very dynamic and can change literally from one day to the next. These are calculated taking into account the price of the shares that the person owns and assets such as real estate, art and more. Precisely, the fall of almost 70% in Tesla shares They have contributed significantly to the loss of assets of Elon Musk, and, to a lesser extent, the sale of these to finance part of the purchase of Twitter.
LVMH headquarters in Paris
Arnault’s wealth, which comes mainly from his stake in LVMH, the company behind Louis Vuitton, has suffered a much more contained fall than Musk’s. The French businessman, now the richest in the world, started this year with 178,000 million dollars in his power and at the close of the market yesterday he was with 162,000 million dollars. In other words, 16,000 million dollars, 8.99%, of his assets have vanished in 2022.
But… how much is 162,000 million dollars? Bloomberg data tells us that Arnault could use his fortune to buy nearly 10% of all homes in the United States or 89 million ounces of gold (each equals 28.70 grams). However, let’s remember, only a part of the entrepreneur’s assets “is in the bank” and can be used immediately.
Arnault was born Roubaix, in the north of France, in 1949. From an early age he discovered his passion for engineeringan impulse that led him to graduate from the prestigious École Polytechnique school and start working at the family construction company Ferret-Savinel, of which he became president on several occasions starting in 1978. Later, however, he would completely change its course.
In 1984, according to The New York Times, he learned that the French government was looking for an investor to take over a textile group called Boussac Saint-Freres that had gone bankrupt. Despite that company’s financial misfortune, he had an asset that was not lost on Arnault: Christian Dior. So, the businessman bought the company and took it upon himself to revitalize it.
Later, in 1989, it took control of most of LVMH, a group that was formed from the merger of Louis Vuitton and Moët Hennessy. Arnault, a technical man with proven business skillsrepeated the Boussac Saint-Freres formula and made LVMH the world’s largest luxury goods company, with brands such as Tiffany & Co, Louis Vuitton, Loro Piana and Kenzo.
Images: LVMH | POT | The White House | Wikimedia Commons
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