Business mogul Elon Musk was the richest man in the world, until he wasn’t. With a staggering net worth of $272B as of August 2022, the industrialist surpassed Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who was in the number one position in 2021.
Musk co-founded six companies including electric car maker Tesla, rocket producer SpaceX, Neuralink and Boring Company. SpaceX, founded in 2002, is worth $127 billion while the Boring Company, which aims to defeat traffic, is worth $5.675 billion.
Twitter’s board agreed to sell the company to a rambunctious Musk for $44 billion in April 2022, after he disclosed a 9.1% stake and threatened a hostile takeover. He closed the deal in October 2022 and proceeded to fire half the employees, including the CEO Parag Agrawal.
Ever since the acquisition, Musk has made a few tweaks. Among the changes he made was reinstating Former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, who received a permanent ban in 2021. A new paid plan offering verification to subscribers, relaunch of a multicolored verification system, suspension of Kanye West’s account, etc.
Musk has been in the spotlight recently since he acquired Twitter, the presage of a major pitfall. A downswing in the value of his shares in Tesla coupled with the staggering $44 billion Twitter purchase sank nearly all his fortune.
Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault otherwise known as Bernard Arnault was the second richest man in the world, according to Forbes. With a net worth of $171.4B. The French business magnate, investor, and art collector is the co-founder and CEO of LVMH, Louis Vuitton and Sephora. Recently, he acquired Tifanny & Co for $15.8 billion and these are just a few of his multitudinous investments.
Musk’s risky investment moves not only cost him the top rung of the ladder, it equally drove away Tesla investors who were very circumspect in their investments. Their skepticism stemmed from Musk’s overt immersion in the Twitter sphere. For a fleeting moment, the Bernard Arnault family was the richest in the world according to Forbes.
Bernard was worth an estimated $184.7 billion, with Musk trailing him by $100 million, worth $184.6 billion. When U.S. markets closed at 4 p.m. ET, Musk had regained the lead, with an estimated net worth of $185.4 billion or $700 million more than Arnault.
