The world’s richest people have a combined $2.1 trillion in wealth, down $200 billion from 2022. But they still hold the lion’s share of the planet’s fortunes.
Bernard Arnault, the head of LVMH luxury goods group, is up $53 billion this year and sits atop the list. Eight other billionaires have also risen in value since 2022.
Bernard Arnault
Bernard Arnault, the head of luxury goods giant LVMH, has topped Forbes’ list of the world’s wealthiest people. With an estimated net worth of $211 billion, he is now well ahead of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
LVMH is a French conglomerate that owns Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior fashion brands, along with Moet & Chandon champagne, Hennessy wine, and many other luxury products. The group has around 6000 retail stores worldwide and is responsible for nearly 70% of the global luxury market.
As CEO of LVMH, Arnault has overseen the company’s growth since its inception. His strategy has helped the firm grow to over 60 brands with over $70 billion in annual sales.
In addition to running LVMH, Arnault also owns several other companies. He has stakes in two wineries, a 5% stake in Carrefour, and a multi-billion-dollar art collection that features masterpieces by Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst.
Elon Musk
The wealthiest people in the world is Elon Musk, CEO of the electric car company Tesla. He also founded SpaceX, which is building a fleet of rockets for NASA.
Musk, who was born in South Africa to a South African father and a Canadian mother, developed an early interest in computers and entrepreneurship at an early age. He left South Africa when he was young and moved to the United States where he launched several technology companies.
He’s also an avid supporter of anti-aging research. As part of his commitment, he donated $370 million to biotech startups, including Alphabet’s Calico, which is working on developing an anti-aging cure for diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.
While he’s not the first billionaire to take a strong stance on population decline, Musk is certainly the most outspoken. He recently tweeted that “population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.”
Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos is the founder and former CEO of the e-commerce giant Amazon. He is also an investor and media proprietor. He is also the founder of Blue Origin, an aerospace company that develops technologies to lower the cost of space travel.
After graduating from Princeton University, Bezos worked in the technology industry on Wall Street for a number of years before founding Amazon in 1994. He later founded Bezos Expeditions, a venture capital firm that invests in companies in the Internet and digital media sectors.
He and his wife, MacKenzie Tuttle, met at D.E. Shaw, a Wall Street investment firm. They were married in 1993 and together have four children.
The founder of Amazon has a net worth of $127 billion as of April 2023, making him the third richest person in the world. He also owns a variety of other companies and is an active philanthropist.
His net worth dropped $57 billion in 2022, thanks to a drop in Amazon shares. It lowered his position on Forbes’ list from No. 2 to No. 3. He is still the richest man in the world in 2023, though.
Larry Page
Larry Page is a computer scientist and internet entrepreneur who co-founded Google with Sergey Brin. He is also a founding member and president of Alphabet Inc., which controls Google.
He was born in 1973 and grew up in Lansing, Michigan. He says his parents were both computer experts, and he was exposed to the tech industry at an early age.
Page went on to study computer science at Stanford University, where he met his future business partner, Sergey Brin. Together, they created the search engine Google and pushed it to the forefront of the industry.
In 1998, they launched a private company that would become the world’s largest search engine. He served as CEO from 1997 to August 2001 (when he stepped down to let Eric Schmidt take over the role), and was then a member of the board and controlling shareholder of Alphabet Inc.
Beyond a successful career in technology, Page has made significant contributions to the community by donating millions of dollars. He and his wife, Lucinda Southworth, have a home in Palo Alto, California.