According to the luxury conglomerate LVMH’s president and CEO, French Bernard Arnault and his family, Forbes magazine has assumed the position of the wealthiest individual globally, surpassing magnate Elon Musk, the proprietor of Tesla, whose stock worth has decreased by 50% in the initial six months of 2022. At present, electric vehicles might represent the future, but they are displaying indications of fragility.
Killing two individuals in China, the self-driving Tesla lost control last November, which also did not aid the company’s value. Partly due to a sell-off to finance Musk’s acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion, the shares of the electric vehicle company have plummeted in recent months. The trading day ended this Monday, December 12th, with a decline of 6.27%.
The trend seems clear, but the final picture of Bloomberg’s fortunes by the end of 2022 remains to be seen. Although he later regained it, last week he briefly lost his title as the richest person in the world to the Arnaults. In real time, Forbes magazine ranks billionaires, which affected Musk’s position.
According to the publication, the family is estimated to have a fortune of $188 billion (approximately €177 billion). Substantial profits are reported by Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Loewe, Sephora, Bulgari, Moët & Chandon, and Tiffany, which are owned by them. These fashion, beverage, and cosmetics brands are part of the LVMH empire, which is overseen by the Arnault family.
In November 2017, the Frenchman was involved in the so-called Paradise Papers, a set of documents linked to investments in tax havens. Since taking control of the Boussac group in 1984, the former owner of Dior who was on the brink of bankruptcy at the time, he has continued to acquire luxury firms, multiplying the value of the LVMH group by 15. The patriarch, Bernard Arnault, 73, has been married twice and has five children.
Musk, however, possesses a wealth that surpasses 181 billion (170 billion euros). He serves as the creator and chief executive officer of the space exploration organization SpaceX, the automobile company Tesla, and the construction and development enterprise The Boring Company. Furthermore, he recently purchased the social media platform Twitter following several months of negotiations. Since assuming control of the company, the business tycoon has terminated half of the employees and has pursued an unpredictable strategy marked by an unwavering support for freedom of speech, prioritizing it over the moderation of false information and offensive language.
Meanwhile, LVMH’s stocks have remained stable, with a slight growth of 3.5%. Since then, the manufacturer’s shares have plummeted by 58%. It reached its peak in November 2021. Musk’s wealth, mainly tied to Tesla, was propelled by a meteoric increase in the car manufacturer’s stock price, which soared over 1000% in two years. Musk became the richest man in the world in September 2021, surpassing Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, who was also Musk’s direct competitor in the aerospace race, now fought not by world powers but by billionaires.