Elon Musk Is No Longer the World’s Richest Person, Falls Behind Bernard Arnault
Tesla CEO trails the European mogul on the wealth rankings amid a slump in the car maker’s shares
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Elon Musk is no longer the world’s richest person.
Mr. Musk, the Tesla Inc. chief executive and new owner of Twitter Inc., gave up the unofficial title Tuesday to European mogul Bernard Arnault for Earth’s wealthiest individual, according to Bloomberg, which publishes a ranking of the richest people in the world. A prolonged slump in Tesla’s stock has wiped out more than $100 billion of Mr. Musk’s net worth this year.
The net worth of Mr. Musk, who claimed bragging rights as the wealthiest person in January 2021, is valued at $163.1 billion as of Tuesday morning, according to Bloomberg. He now trails Mr. Arnault, the chairman and chief executive of luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, whose personal wealth is estimated at $170.6 billion.
Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment. An LVMH spokesman declined to comment.
When Mr. Musk first reached the pinnacle of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index almost two years ago, he overtook Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, driven by a meteoric rise in the value of Tesla. The car maker’s shares have fallen sharply this year, though, amid concerns about demand. Mr. Bezos has also fallen in the wealth ranks and is now the fifth-richest person, largely reflecting a drop in Amazon’s stock amid recession fears. Mr. Bezos has said he plans to give away most of his fortune to charity.
For many executives and founders, their net worth is at least partially tied up in shares of their businesses. That means volatility in stocks and other holdings can sway their measures of wealth. Establishing their exact net worth can also be tricky, in part because many of their holdings are private.
Mr. Musk is compensated in stock awards as Tesla’s CEO and doesn’t accept a cash salary from the electric-car company. He has accumulated most of his wealth in recent years as Tesla has turned profitable.
Photos: Elon Musk Buys Twitter. Here’s How He Made His Fortune
In January 2020, Mr. Musk’s net worth was valued at about $28 billion, according to Bloomberg. As Tesla’s stock soared, so did Mr. Musk’s wealth, which peaked at $336 billion in November 2021. He has lost more on paper this year than any other billionaire, according to Bloomberg.
Mr. Musk, a serial entrepreneur, runs rocket company SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. He also founded Boring Co., an underground tunnel business, and neuroscience startup Neuralink Corp. In October, Mr. Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion. He has sold some Tesla stock this year at least in part to fund the Twitter deal, including selling $4 billion worth of shares last month.
It has been a rocky period for Twitter since Mr. Musk took ownership. He fired about half the staff, and the social-media company has seen waves of people leaving. It suffered “a massive drop in revenue” and was losing $4 million a day, he said soon after buying the business. Mr. Musk has said he aimed to make Twitter less dependent on advertising revenue that accounted for about 90% of sales, though efforts to introduce a paid subscription service have suffered repeated delays. He later said bankruptcy is a possibility for Twitter.
Mr. Arnault’s wealth, meanwhile, is largely tied up in the luxury empire LVMH.
A businessman from Northern France, Mr. Arnault bought the storied French fashion house Dior out of bankruptcy in the 1980s and then used it to amass a stake in LVMH. This shareholding structure remains in place today: the Arnaults own more than 97% of Dior, which in turn owns 41% of LVMH. The family also owns close to 7% of LVMH directly, with total voting rights of well above 50%.
Like some of his peers, Mr. Arnault went on a spending spree over the past three decades, allowing him to build economies of scale in advertising, shop leases and department-store space between his dozens of brands.
Ultimately, Mr. Arnault came out on top in a bruising race to become the biggest in the industry, earning the nickname “the wolf in cashmere” for the way he pursued acquisitions. LVMH’s wines-and-spirits division houses Dom Pérignon champagne and Hennessy cognac. Its fashion and leather goods unit includes brands like Loewe, Celine and Fendi, while the conglomerate also owns American jeweller Tiffany & Co. and watchmaker TAG Heuer.
Having gone on a tear since 2015, the luxury industry also has held up better than most this year. LVMH reported strong revenue in the most recent quarter as wealthy consumers continued to spend freely on luxury goods despite the uncertain economic backdrop.
Indian industrialist Gautam Adani is currently the third-richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg. Mr. Adani is the chairman of his namesake Adani Group, an India-based conglomerate involved in initiatives including green energy, power and gas distribution. His push into green energy comes as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stressed development for infrastructure and renewable energy. Shares of Mr. Adani’s publicly traded businesses have risen this year.
Mr. Adani is the first person from Asia who has ranked this high on Bloomberg’s wealth index, long dominated by U.S. tech entrepreneurs. Earlier this year he became a centibillionaire, with his net worth exceeding that of Warren Buffett.
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An original watercolour illustration for the cover of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, 1997 — the first book in J.K. Rowling’s hit series—could sell for US$600,000 at a Sotheby’s auction this summer.
The illustration is headlining a June 26 sale in New York that will also feature big-ticket items from the collection of the late Dr. Rodney P. Swantko, a surgeon and collector from Indiana, including manuscripts by poet Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes books
The Harry Potter illustration, which introduced the young wizard character to the world, is expected to sell for between US$400,000 to US$600,000, which would make it the highest-priced item ever sold related to the Harry Potter world. This is the second time the illustration has been sold, however—it was on the auction block at Sotheby’s in London in 2001, where it achieved £85,750 (US$107,316).
The artist of the illustration, Thomas Taylor, was 23 years old at the time and a graduate student working at a children’s bookshop. According to Sotheby’s, Taylor took a “professional commission from an unknown author to visualise a unique wizarding world,” Sotheby’s said in a news release. He depicted Harry Potter boarding the train to Hogwarts on platform9 ¾ platform, and the illustration became the “universal image” of the Harry Potter series, Sotheby’s said.
“It is exciting to see the painting that marks the very start of my career, decades later and as bright as ever! It takes me back to the experience of reading Harry Potter for the first time—one of the first people in the world to do so—and the process of creating what is now an iconic image,” Taylor said in the release.
Meanwhile, to commemorate the 175th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s For Annie , 1849, Sotheby’s recently reunited the autographed manuscript of the poem with the author’s home, Poe Cottage, in the Bronx.
The cottage is where the author lived with his wife, Virginia, and mother-in-law, Maria Clemm, from 1846 until he died in 1849. The manuscript, also from the Swantko collection, will remain at the home until it is offered at auction at Sotheby’s on June 26 with an estimate between US$400,000 and US$600,000.
Matthew Borowick for Sotheby’s
Poe Cottage, preserved and overseen by the Bronx County Historical Society, is home to many of the author’s famous works, including Eureka , 1948, and Annabel Lee , 1927.
“To reunite the For Annie manuscript with the Poe Cottage nearly two centuries after it was first composed brought to life literary history for a truly special and unique occasion,” Richard Austin , Sotheby’s Global Head of Books & Manuscripts, said in a news release.
For Annie was one of Poe’s most important compositions, and was addressed to Nancy “Annie” L. Richmond, one of the several women Poe pursued after his wife Viriginia’s death from tuberculosis in 1847.
In a letter to Richmond herself, Poe proclaimed For Annie was his best work: “I think the lines For Annie much the best I have ever written.”
The poem was composed in 1849, only months before Poe’s death, Sotheby’s said in the piece, Poe highlights the romantic comfort he feels from a woman named Annie while simultaneously grappling with the darkness of death, with lines like “And the fever called ‘living’ is conquered at last.”
Matthew Borowick for Sotheby’s
In the margins of the manuscript are the original handwritten instructions by Nathaniel P. Willis, co-editor of the New York Home Journal, where Poe published other poems such as The Raven and submitted For Annie on April 20, 1849.
Willis added Poe’s name in the top right and instructions about printing and presenting the poem on the side. The poem was also published in the Boston Weekly that same month.
Another piece of literary history included in the Swantko sale could surpass US$1 million. Conan Doyle’s autographed manuscript of the Sherlock Holmes tale The Sign of Four , 1889, is estimated to achieve between US$800,000 and US$1.2 million.
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