According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Elon Musk, 51, has seen his wealth fall by more than $100 billion since January, to $168.5 billion, making him the second-richest man in the world.
Bernard Arnault has overtaken Elon Musk as the richest person in the world, who was once estimated to be worth $340 billion.
That is less than the $172.9 billion net worth of 73-year-old Arnault, whose wealth is primarily derived from his 48% ownership of the fashion juggernaut LVMH in New York.
It is the first time since Musk was ranked no 2 in September 2021 that the Tesla boss has fallen from first place in the rankings. In a blatant demonstration of how the richest people could use their enormous fortunes, he startled the world in April with his bid to take Twitter private for $44 billion.
Earlier, Musk tried to back out of the Twitter agreement for months, but was unsuccessful.
Musk has promised to revamp the social media site, but he is up against several obstacles, some of which he himself created.
In contrast to Musk, Arnault is the new richest man in the world and is without controversy.
Arnault has consistently ranked among the wealthiest people for a long time, but his wealth never increased as quickly as that of US tech billionaires.
His empire is now holding up, in contrast to Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin of Alphabet Inc, whose wealth is being severely impacted by rising interest rates.
