The 72-year-old French Bernard Arnault, CEO of Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH), has knocked Amazon founder Jeff Bezos off the throne as the richest person on earth. This is evident from the Forbes Billionaires Index, the indicator for who is the richest.
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Arnault heads the group of luxury brands, such as Louis Vuitton bags, Moët bubbles and Hennessy cognac. Jeweler chain Tiffany’s is now also part of the group.
It’s not thanks to the luxury brands that Arnault overtook Bezos. This is due to a lower valuation of Amazon by investors. The value of the online store where everything is for sale plummeted on the American stock exchange on Friday to such an extent that 57-year-old Bezos saw part of his assets go up in smoke.
Tesla’s Elon Musk (50) ranks third among the richest people on Earth, Microsoft founder Bill Gates (65) at four and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (37) at five. It is mainly Americans who dominate the list.
Arnault’s net worth now stands at $194.2 billion (163.3 billion euros). That of Bezos is below that at 192.4 billion dollars (162 billion euros).
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