Elon Musk (Tesla, Twitter, and SpaceX) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon) were demoted to second and third place by Bernard Arnault (Lvmh), who became the richest man in the world. The businesswoman Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, heiress of L’Oreal, is since 2019 the richest woman in the world.
French luxury stronger than tech?
The latest ranking of the world’s wealthiest people, published on Tuesday by the American magazine Forbes, reflects the lesser resilience of the Tech sector compared to the Luxury sector.
In third place in 2022, Frenchman Bernard Arnault, CEO of Lvmh, takes the title of richest man in the world in the 2023 list. He overtakes Elon Musk, the head of Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX, and Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, demoted to second and third place respectively.
The fortune of the French businessman has been estimated at 211 billion dollars by Forbes, which “used stock prices and exchange rates of Friday, March 11, 2023” to “calculate net fortunes”. Elon Musk’s net worth was estimated at $180 billion, ahead of Jeff Bezos ($114 billion), Larry Ellison, co-founder of the software company Oracle ($107 billion) and businessman Warren Buffett ($106 billion).
Richest woman in the world
Another Cocorico: the businesswoman and heiress of L’Oreal, the world’s number one beauty company, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers has been ranked eleventh wealthy in the world (80.5 billion dollars). She is thus since 2019 the richest woman in the world, a title that her mother, Liliane Bettencourt, had already held in 2016 and 2017.
For the first time in the history of the ranking, the richest man and woman in France are also the richest in the world,” said Forbes France. A double performance that testifies to the strength of the French economy despite the successive crises that our country is going through, directly or indirectly.
In France, Forbes lists a total of 43 billionaires, including seven women, “for a total wealth that has increased by 20.6% since 2022”.
Among these, we note in fourth and fifth position, three other fortunes of Luxury, namely François Pinault, the founder of Kering followed by the brothers Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, the owners of Chanel.
Tech in disarray
Beyond its celebrity aspect, this Forbes list casts a harsh light on the economic sectors that are on a roll. While luxury goods companies broke all records in terms of results and stock market value in 2022, the big names in Tech have been in bad shape lately, with sometimes spectacular falls on the stock market…
Elon Musk would have lost almost half of his fortune in 2022 according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The cause: the tumble of Tesla electric cars on Wall Street, after the American billionaire bought Twitter for 44 billion dollars in late October. The first decisions of Elon Musk within the famous social network -firing of more than half of the employees, and reinstatement of Donald Trump- have made investors cough.
For his part, Jeff Bezos suffered from the underperformance of the online retail giant Amazon, which also fell sharply on the stock market in 2022. Admittedly, he is no longer at the helm of his “creature” and is now exploring space via his company Blue Origin. But he still owes most of his fortune to Amazon stock. As executive director of the board of directors, he still watches over the company…
According to the French Revenue, that didn’t stop him from seeing more than $86 billion squandered last year. Too bad for the charities, he announced to CNN that he wanted to donate his fortune during his lifetime…
Read also > LVMH: Bernard Arnault buys 270 million euros worth of shares
Featured photo : © Presse
