After coming in third place in 2022, Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH (and owner of Boursier.com) is back at the top of the Forbes annual ranking of the planet’s billionaires this year.
Published on Tuesday, the Forbes list, which estimated the fortune of Bernard Arnault (and his family) at 211 billion dollars (taking into account share prices and exchange rates as of March 11, 2023) has placed ahead of Elon Musk (2nd place) with an estimated fortune of 180 billion dollars, Jeff Bezos (3rd, with 114 billion dollars), Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle (4th, 107 billion dollars) and Warren Buffett (5th, 106 billion).
Two French in the top 20
Ranked eleventh, the French Françoise Bettencourt Meyers (and her family), heiress of L’Oréal, is also the richest woman in the world, for the third consecutive year, with a fortune estimated at 80.5 billion dollars.
This year, 14 Americans, a Mexican (Carlos Slim Helu), three Europeans (B.Arnault, F.Bettencourt Meyers and Amancio Ortega,) and two Asians (Zhong Shan Shan, of Chinese nationality, and Mukesh Ambani, of Indian nationality) share the first 20 places of the world’s top of the great fortunes.
The fortune of French billionaires has jumped by more than 20% in one year
” For the first time in the history of the ranking, the richest man and woman in France are also the richest in the world. A double performance which testifies to the vigor of the French economy despite the successive crises that our country is going through, directly or indirectly “, welcomed Forbes France in a press release, which lists 43 French billionaires for a total fortune up 20.6% compared to 2021.
François Pinault (Kering), Alain and Gérard Wertheimer (Chanel) are ranked 4th and 5th richest people in France. Following in sixth place Emmanuel Besnier, CEO of the Lactalis group, “ first billionaire in the ranking from another horizon than the beauty-luxury sector, to the 7th Nicolas Puech (grandson of the founder of Hermès), from the 8th to the 10th, Rodolphe, Tanya and Jacques Jr Saadé, the children of the founder of CMA CGM, Jacques Saadé. Xavier Niel (Free) is 18th, and Patrick Drahi 22nd.