Elon Musk has been dethroned as the world’s richest man, according to a report by Forbes.
The Twitter owner and Tesla boss reportedly dropped to the second spot on Forbes’ list of “Real-Time Billionaires,” behind Bernard Arnault, CEO of French luxury brand LVMH, maker of Louis Vuitton luxury goods and Hennessy cognac.
According to the report, Arnault took over the spot with a reported wealth of $186.2 billion. Musk — who has held the top spot on the Forbes list since September 2021 — has a net worth of $185 billion.
However, Musk is still well ahead of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, who is in third place and is worth $135 billion and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose wealth is estimated at $113.1 billion.
Musk recently sold off about $4 billion of Tesla stock to fund his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, which was finalised in October. The deal was embroiled with issues including layoffs and skittish advertisers wary of Musk’s vision for the platform. Musk had also reportedly sold blocks of Tesla shares worth a total of $15.4 billion earlier this year when his deal to buy Twitter was announced.
Musk closed the deal with $13 billion in loans from banks and a $33.5 billion equity commitment, which included his 9.6 percent Twitter stake worth $4 billion and $7.1 billion from investors.
