Bernard Arnault tops Elon Musk as world’s richest person: Forbes

Elon Musk is no longer the world’s richest person alive.

The Tesla founder and Twitter CEO was knocked off the top spot on Forbes’ 2023 billionaires list by fashion industry exec Bernard Arnault of France, who has a $211 billion fortune, the publication announced Tuesday.

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.