Bernard Arnault, head of the luxury empire LVMH, is the richest person on the planet, according to Forbes’ annual ranking, with a fortune that has grown steadily in recent years and now stands at $211 billion, AFP notes.
It is the first time that a French citizen leads the Forbes ranking.
Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, vice president of L’Orèal, a company founded by her grandfather and now a world leader in beauty and cosmetics, is the richest woman and ranks 11th globally with $80.5 billion .
After Arnault, the podium is completed by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos: the Tesla CEO lost the first position due to the sharp decline in his company’s shares on the stock market, due in part to the expensive acquisition of Twitter, and now has assets of 180 billion; the founder of Amazon, whose assets fell to 107 billion, also dropped one position.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, dropped to 16th place, with assets of $64.4 billion.
Globally, there are 2,640 ten-figure net worths, down from 2,668 in 2022. Together, billionaires now have total assets of 12.2 trillion, down 500 billion from 12.7 trillion in March 2022.
Almost half of the people in the ranking now have lower assets than 12 months ago.
The United States is the country with the most in the ranking, with 735 assets and a total of 4,500 billion.
China (including Hong Kong and Macau) remains in second place with 562 billionaires and total assets of 2,000 billion, followed by India with 169 billionaires and total assets of 675 billion.
(source: Mediafax)
