The CEO of LVMH, Bernard Arnault, of France, has formally surpassed Musk to claim the title of  world’s richest billionaire. With a $225.8 billion fortune, the 74-year-old engineer tops Forbes’ list of billionaires for 2023, overtaking Elon Musk, who was first last year and is now in second place, by $31 billion.

When the Frenchman’s net worth was $3.1 billion in 1997, he first appeared on Forbes’ list of the wealthiest individuals. By 2005, he had entered the top 20 richest persons (worth $17 billion), and by 2011, he had climbed to the fourth position in the world (worth $41 billion). He advanced quickly up the rankings. He finished last year behind Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, where he has been third for the past three years.

Due to the luxury conglomerate’s record-breaking revenues in 2022—which included Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, and Tiffany & Co.—Arnault had a prosperous year. It is now clear that Arnault has mastered the art of keeping traditional luxury goods appealing. Why are companies like Dior and Louis Vuitton so successful? They have these two characteristics, which could be in conflict: These are the height of contemporary and timeless, according to Arnault, who was mentioned by Forbes in 2019.

Elon Musk’s estimated net worth is $180 billion, according to Forbes’ ‘The Real-Time Billionaires List,’ a decrease of $39 billion from the previous year. Musk’s net worth has declined as a result of his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, which was funded with Tesla stock. This deal caused a large decline in Tesla stock since investors were a little alarmed by Musk’s whims. Tesla is still much below where it was when Musk bought Twitter, despite the fact that it has made up a major amount of those losses this year.