Luxury goods mogul Bernard Arnault is now the richest man in the world, bumping Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk down to the second spot, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Arnault, who is chairman and chief executive of Louis Vuitton SE or LVMH (LVMUY), has seen more than a $7 billion loss in net worth in 2022 while LVMH stock is off roughly 6.58% during the same time period. It hasn't been enough to keep him from taking the top spot, though, given that Musk's net worth has plummeted more than $100 billion in 2022.

The French businessman has a net worth of $171 billion, which is more than 5% of France's economy, compared to a net worth $164 billion for Musk.

Who is Bernard Arnault? The 'wolf in cashmere'

Arnault, who is known as “the wolf in cashmere,” was born in the French city of Roubaix.

He joined his family’s construction business in 1971 and moved to the U.S. in 1981 when the socialists came to power in France.

Back then, he was considered a “a little-known real-estate developer trying to expand his venerable French family's influence in New Rochelle, N.Y,” according to a New York Times article from 1989.

Arnault entered the luxury market in 1984 with an acquisition of a near-bankrupt French textile company that owned Christian Dior.

He later sold the company’s other businesses and used the money to buy a controlling stake in LVMH, which was at that point a merger between Louis Vuitton and champagne and cognac maker Mo?t Hennessy.

Arnault then ousted the Louis Vuitton president and took over, a strategy he repeated over the years. The luxury goods conglomerate owns Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, and more.

In January 2021, LVMH acquired jewelry company Tiffany & Co. for $15.8 billion.

While his “brash American-style” approach to business was criticized by the French press in the past, he’s described by The Telegraph as a man of refined taste: He’s a classical pianist, an art collector, and a noted philanthropist. The French billionaire donated roughly $212 million in 2019 to help rebuild the Notre Dame in Paris after it endured a massive fire.

And unlike Musk, Arnault prefers to stay under the radar. After some Twitter accounts started tracking private planes of French billionaires to raise climate change awareness, Arnault elected to sell his private jet.

“Indeed, with all these stories, the group had a plane and we sold it,” Arnault told an LVMH-owned radio station. “The result now is that no one can see where I go because I rent planes when I use private planes.”

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Adriana Belmonte is a reporter and editor covering politics and health care policy for Yahoo Finance. You can follow her on Twitter @adrianambells and reach her at [email protected].

Aarthi is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami.

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