- Bernard Arnault Replaces Jeff Bezos As The Richest Person In World today as Amazon’s stock slipped 0.7 percent with Bill Gates Still at number 3.
Jeff Bezos is not the richest person in the world at least for now.
The net worth of the e-commerce giant fell from $760 million to $115.6 billion today as Amazon’s stock slipped 0.7 percent. The nine-figure decline may be a drop in Bezos ‘ bucket, but it was enough to knock him on Forbes ‘ list of billionaires worldwide from first to second place.
The next richest person on the planet (again): Bernard Arnault, chief executive of luxury goods behemoth LVMH. On Friday, Arnault earned $1.9 billion in net worth as LVMH stock increased by 0.7%.
The Frenchman is currently worth $117 billion, up from $102 billion when, less than four months ago, he graced Forbes ‘ cover. “When you equate us with Microsoft,[ we’re] little,” Arnault said to Forbes. “It’s just the beginning.” Arnault is $7 billion richer than Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder, who remains behind Arnault and Bezos the world’s third-richest person. Gates would be wealthier than both men if he had not donated $35.8 billion during his lifetime to charity and counting.
By 2020, Arnault’s LVMH hit the ground running. The cosmetics incubator, Kendo, bought the majority of the eponymous beauty brand from Kat Von D this week. And LVMH also purchased Wednesday from Lucara Diamond Corp. a tennis ball-sized rough diamond— the second-largest in history. The 1,758-carat diamond is a timely splurge, as LVMH in November made a $16.2 billion bid to buy legendary jeweler Tiffany & Co. Tiffany shareholders are due February 4 to vote on the deal.
Recently In November, It was reported that The French businessman added an estimated $2.8 billion to his fortune within two days of announcing the acquisition by LVMH of the iconic jewelry brand Tiffany and Co, according to Forbes ‘ Real-Time Billionaires List. His net worth boomed by 2.7 percent to a total of $107.6 billion, putting Bernard Arnault just behind Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
Bernard Arnault crossed the $100 billion mark earlier in June 2019 and entered the most elite club in the world to become a centi-billionaire. At the time, only three people in the world were part of this elite club, including Jeff Bezos from Amazon and Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft’s technology giant.
Luxury brand LVMH, where Bernard Arnault is the majority stakeholder, recently snapped over $16 billion in US jewelry brand Tiffany and Co. It is now expected that Moet Hennessy-Louis Vuitton will expand Tiffany’s presence around the globe and especially in the budding Asain market, Bloomberg said. LVMH has several in-house jewelry brands, including Bulgari, TAG Heuer, etc. Shares of LVMH saw a spike on Monday after Tiffany’s acquisition was announced by the company.
Source- Forbes.
