Europe’s richest man has a fortune larger than the GDP of Ecuador and is suing social platform X, owned by wealthiest person in the world, Elon Musk.
Bernard Arnault, 75, is the chairman and chief executive of LVMH, a vast empire of 75 fashion and cosmetics brands, which includes Sephoera and Louis Vuitton, as per Forbes.
LVMH also bought iconic American jeweler Tiffany & Co in 2021 for $15.8 billion (£11.6billion), and his holding company Agache backs venture capital firm Aglaé Ventures which has investments in firms including TikTok‘s parent company ByteDance and Netflix, as per the outlet.
Forbes estimates that Bernard Arnault and his family are worth a cool $170.7billion (around £138.8bn) as of Thursday, January 9.
That makes him richer than a number of countries, including Ecuador, which was estimated to have a GDP of $118.8 billion (about £96.6billion) as of 2023.
Arnault has five children, Delphine, Antoine, Frederic, Jean and Alexandre, who all have an equal stake in his holding company.
He lives in Paris with his wife Helene Mercier, a pianist like his mother, and has degrees in arts and science from Polytechnique de Paris.
But Arnault and his family’s mindblowing collective wealth is some way off that of tech entrepreneur Musk, who is estimated to be worth $416.2billion (around £338.3bn).
The 53-year-old, who also owns tech giants Tesla and Space X saw his wealth skyrocket as Donald Trump won re-election in November, with Musk a passionate supporter and donor to the Republican’s campaign.
Arnault is currently suing Musk’s X, accusing the platform of using his newspapers’ content without paying for it.
He is taking the company to court as part of legal proceedings jointly brought by Le Parisien and Les Echos, French newspapers owned by LVMH, as per The Telegraph.
According to the outlet, the lawsuit, which is also supported by Le Figaro and Le Monde, alleges that the newspapers are due payment under rules allowing news outlets to receive remuneration from digital platforms for the distribution of their content.
Mr Musk nor X have commented on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit is set to be heard in Paris next May.
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