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 •
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.
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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.
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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.
