It’s been a rollercoaster year among the very wealthiest, with Musk, Jeff Bezos and LVMH’s Bernard Arnault all vying for the number one spot.
Athree-way race for the title of wealthiest person in the world intensified Thursday as Elon Musk, worth an estimated $177.4 billion at the day’s end, overtook French luxury magnate Bernard Arnault for second place. Arnault, who held pole position to start the week, got nearly $21 billion poorer over the past two days as LVMH shares tumbled 12.6%. That led to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos reclaiming the top spot with a fortune estimated at $185.5 billion.
It’s been a rollercoaster year atop the billionaire ranks. Since January, the three have periodically jockeyed for the lead on Forbes’ real-time tracker of the world’s richest people, with each coming out on top—and losing the title—multiple times over the past eight months.
The constant shuffling is unusual. Over the first three decades after Forbes began tracking billionaires’ net worths in 1987, only six people held the title of world’s richest person. In the early years, two Japanese real estate moguls—Yoshiaki Tsutsumi and Taikichiro Mori—topped the list, until Bill Gates came along in the late 1990s. From 1997 to 2017, Gates dominated the list, save for a single year when Warren Buffett took the top spot (2008) and a three-year stint when Mexico’s Carlos Slim Helu wrested the title (2010 through 2013). (Spanish retailer Amancio Ortega also grabbed the top spot for a few hours in 2015, and a couple days in 2016.)
Elon Musk
Net worth: $177.1 billion
Gain in past 12 months: $110.9 billion
Weeks this year ended at No. 1: 1
Musk’s fortune has grown by more than $100 billion in one year, thanks to an extraordinary rise in the stock price of electric vehicle maker Tesla. After a brief drop at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, shares rocketed in subsequent months. On January 8, 2021—with Tesla shares up more than 1,000% from the pandemic-period low—Musk first became the world’s richest person, overtaking Bezos. For about a week, the two traded places on a near-daily basis, but as Tesla stock began to fall, Bezos solidified his position once again. Musk, meanwhile, was overtaken by Arnault and dropped down to third place for months beginning in April.
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