Elon Musk Isn't the World's Richest Person Anymore — Here's Who Stole His Title The new billionaire at the top is a far less incendiary figure.

By Amanda Breen Edited by Jessica Thomas Dec 14, 2022

SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk can no longer call himself the richest person in the world.

The 51-year-old Twitter owner saw his fortune, at one point worth $340 billion, fall by more than $100 billion since January to $163.6 billion, Bloomberg reported. That makes Bernard Arnault, the 73-year-old who owns 48% of fashion company LVMH and is worth $170.8 billion, the wealthiest person.

It's been a chaotic year for Musk, whose acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion — which he attempted to pull out of for months — caused him to offload more than $15 billion in Tesla shares by August to fund the purchase.

When the deal was finalized in October, the Bloomberg wealth index subtracted $10 billion from Musk's fortune, and the road ahead for Twitter looks rocky: The company is on track to see annual interest costs that surpass a measure of its earnings for 2021.

Arnault, a far less incendiary figure than Musk, has long held a spot in the world's wealthiest people rankings.

Over the past 30 years, the billionaire has transformed LVMH into a luxury goods giant, with 75 labels selling wine, spirits, fashion, leather goods, perfumes, cosmetics, watches, jewelry, luxury travel and hotel stays, per CNN. LVMH also completed a $15.8 billion acquisition of Tiffany & Co in January 2021.

Musk likely won't fall further down the list of top billionaires anytime soon: Spots three and four go to Gautam Adani and Jeff Bezos, who boast $125 billion and $116 billion fortunes, respectively.

Amanda Breen

Entrepreneur Staff

Senior Features Writer

Amanda Breen is a senior features writer at Entrepreneur.com. She is a graduate of Barnard College and received an MFA in writing at Columbia University, where she was a news fellow for the School of the Arts.

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