Elon Musk has ensued with legal troubles, technical glitches, and internal problems since he completed the Twitter deal in October 2022. When the deal was in process, the company sued him for delaying the takeover. But since he took over the platform, things have become chaotic for him on and behind the scenes. Musk endured a lot of financial loss to buy Twitter. However, the conditions are debilitating since he acquired the platform.
He has fired more than half of his working force at Twitter due to radical steps to revamp it into “Twitter 2.0”. The platform is losing money as advertisers started pulling the plug on advertising on Twitter. Before he started his obsessive bid in April 2022, in January 2022, he had a reported $304.2 billion net worth. But, since he began the process to acquire the platform, his finances dwindled to a large extent taking it below $200 billion. On Wednesday, he momentarily lost the title of the richest man, when the CEO of Louis Vuitton’s parent company LVMH soared to the top position.
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Who Is Bernard Arnault?
Elon Musk was the richest man with an estimated net worth of $219 billion in August 2022. He overtook Jeff Bezos, who was touted as the richest man, in 2022 after being in the second spot in 2021. But, on December 7th, 2022, he lost the first spot on Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List. The Chairman and the CEO of LVMH, the parent company of luxury beauty products and clothes, Louis Vuitton became the richest person.
Bernard Arnault is the top shot at the LVMH Moët Hennessy. However, before taking the fashion world by storm, he was an engineer at his father’s company Ferret-Savinel. He rose from the position of executive management to its Chairman in 1978. Mr. Bernard served in the construction company till 1984. When the parent company of Christian Dior, Boussac Saint-Frères, was listed for a takeover, Arnault showed great interest.
First, he acquired Financière Agache with Antoine Bernheim. Then, he won the bid for Boussac and expanded the empire. Later, with business politics and tactics, he became the largest shareholder in the current LVMH and threw the then President of Louis Vuitton Henry Racaimer to have the majority of voting rights and stakes.So, since 1989, he has been the head honcho of one of the finest fashion brands. LVMH showed a promising growth of 29% in the first quarter of 2022 despite the Omicron variant and war in Ukraine. Its luxurious fashion and leather goods companies, Dior and Louis Vuitton had a 30% organic growth. But, the shares have been in successive decline for six months.
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Is Elon Musk Sabotaging His Finances?
Bernard did not continue his reign as the richest man in the world. Elon Musk had $184.9 billion and Arnault had $ 184.7 billion when the trade shut for the day. The figure restored the CEO of Twitter as the richest man in the world. But, this may happen again as there is a difference of only $200 million dethroning Musk as the richest man.
Forbes wrote, “The two men’s fortunes are nearly the same – separated by just $200 million – so it won’t be surprising if they continue to flip flop in Forbes’ rankings of the world’s wealthiest”. But, the Twitter acquisition has hurt Musk to a great extent also affecting his electric car venture Tesla. When he was acquiring the microblogging site, he sold nearly $15 billion worth of stocks at Tesla.
In November 2022, he had an estimated net worth of $195.6 billion due to a slip in the stocks of Tesla. This is due to Musk’s preoccupation with Twitter, which has also lost a hefty sum after losing major advertisers on the app due to his erratic behavior. The Tesla owner has lost nearly $13 billion this year.
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