A 72-year-old French fashion executive and investor was briefly listed Monday as the richest man in the world, but then promptly lost the distinction when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, 57, a regular on the “richest man” in the world list, raised his net worth by a couple of billion dollars.
According to Forbes, Bernard Arnault, the chairman and chief executive of the French luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, reached an estimated net worth of $186.3 billion on Monday morning, narrowly edging out the Amazon CEO by roughly $300 million.
But before Arnault could spend much time at all as the world’s richest man, the stock market on the east coast of the United States opened up for the day. Mere hours after the stock market opened, Bezos gained $2.4 billion and, with it, his title back.
“The two men entered the weekend on level terms, worth $186 billion each, after shares in Arnault’s luxury goods conglomerate LVMH rallied in the second half of last week,” reported Forbes. “LVMH stock performed even better on Monday, closing nearly 1% higher and boosting Arnault’s fortune by $1.7 billion—enough for him to briefly eclipse Bezos and become the world’s richest person for a few hours. Then Amazon shares ticked up more than 1% as of 1:30 pm ET on Monday, making Bezos $2.4 billion richer.”
Bezos ultimately ended the day $2.1 billion richer.
Arnault, currently one of only two non-Americans on the list of top ten richest people in the world, has achieved status as the world’s richest man on two other brief occasions. The first time was back in late December of 2019; Bezos promptly overtook him. But Arnault took the title of richest man last Friday night as well — again, only briefly — until he was overtaken by the Amazon founder.
As of late Monday, the Forbes real-time billionaire tracker shows Bezos with an estimated net worth of $188.2 billion and “Bernard Arnault & family” at $187.3 billion. Below them, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, 49, is in a distant third place, with an estimated $152.5 billion net worth — a feat he accomplished relatively quickly, having been worth about $30 billion at the beginning of 2020, according to CNBC. Musk was also the biggest winner of the day; his net worth increased an estimated $5.2 billion on Monday, according to the Forbes tracker.
Below Musk, there is another notable drop-off in the net worth in the world’s richest people. The title of fourth richest man belongs to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, 65, who for a long time was regularly listed as the world’s wealthiest man. Gates is currently worth an estimated $126 billion.
The next five people on the Forbes list are all Americans. The list includes people such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ($117.7 billion), 37, world-renowned investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet ($109.4 billion), 90, software developer and businessman Larry Ellison ($103.1 billion), 76, and Google co-founders Larry Page ($102.8 billion), 48, and the 47-year-old Sergey Brin ($99.6 billion)