French tycoon 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 Mot Hennessy empire of brands that includes Sephora, Tiffany & Co., Christian Dior and Stella McCartney, boasts a fortune valued at $230 billion as of Monday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
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 nearly $23 billion since the start 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 $8.5 billion.
His wealth was also boosted by the stock performance 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 Neuralink.
Since Jan. 1, Musk has seen his fortune drop 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).
