Elon Musk Is Not The World's Richest Man Anymore & Here's Who Took His Place
Let that sink in.
Elon Musk has lost his title as the richest person on the planet, after seeing his net worth drop by $40 billion — or nearly the cost of his Twitter purchase — in less than a year.
Musk’s net worth stood at $176.8 billion at the end of the day on Tuesday, according to Forbes’ realtime billionaire net worth tracker. That's down from the $219-billion estimate that Forbes used for its annual billionaire list in early April.
Bloomberg News has a smaller estimate: $163.6 billion, or less than half of the $340 billion he was worth at his peak. The site estimates that Musk has lost $100 billion since the beginning of the year, so his $44-billion Twitter purchase is only part of the problem.
Musk's money troubles are in part due to some big problems at Tesla, which has seen its share prices cut in half on the stock market since he announced his Twitter bid in April, The Guardian reports.
But at least he can tweet all the sick memes he wants now, right?
With Musk now dethroned as the richest man in the world, you might think that Amazon boss Jeff Bezos caught up to him. But you'd be wrong.
Who is the richest man in the world?
The richest billionaire in the world as of December 14 was France's Bernard Arnault, whom Forbes estimates to be worth $188.3 billion.
Arnault, 73, is the CEO and chairman of LVMH, the fashion empire that includes such brands as Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co. and Sephora. Four of Arnault's five children are involved in the family business, so they
How did Bernard Arnault make his money?
Arnault's father started the family fortune by founding a manufacturing and construction company, which his son eventually took over in the 1970s, according to the Business of Fashion.
Bernard started putting the family's money into real estate and luxury fashion, including Christian Dior, which he bought in 1984. He kept going from there, gobbling up business after business to build his empire.