Elon Musk loses top spot on Forbes’ annual billionaires list

(CNN) – Elon Musk has been officially kicked off Forbes magazine’s “World’s Billionaires List”.

The head of Tesla and Twitter is now the second richest billionaire, with an estimated fortune of $180 billion, which is $39 billion less than a year earlier. The first place went to Bernard Arnault, president of French luxury goods giant LVMH. His net worth increased by more than $50 billion last year to $211 billion.

This should come as no surprise to Musk, whose position on Forbes’ daily updated “Real-Time Billionaires” list has fluctuated over the past few months. He and Arnault often switch places.

However, this Tuesday’s list tracks annual wealth. Forbes explained that Musk’s fortune has shrunk as his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, funded by Tesla shares, scared investors and led to a sharp drop in Tesla shares last year. Tesla has recouped a lot of those losses this year, but it’s still far less than it was before Musk bought Twitter.

Forbes said that “Musk largely tweeted himself from the highest ranks” because Tesla shares are down 50% since he took control of Twitter a year ago. SpaceX is a bright factor for the billionaire, reports the magazine, with its valuation rising from $13 billion to $140 billion over the past year.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos lost the most money among the billionaires on the list (about $57 billion), pushing him from second to third place. The loss can be attributed to Amazon shares losing nearly 40% of their value last year.

As for Arnault, Forbes said the Frenchman had a “breakout year” in 2022 due to record profits in the luxury goods conglomerate, which includes Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Tiffany & Co. LVMH shares have risen 25% over the past year. The patriarch recently revealed his plans to succeed him in favor of his sons.

Forbes said the total number of billionaires on this year’s list fell to 2,640 (from 2,668), marking the second consecutive year of decline.

“It’s been another strange year for the richest people on the planet,” Chase Peterson Whithorn, senior wealth editor at Forbes, said in a statement. “Almost half of the list is poorer than it was 12 months ago, but a lucky few are richer by billions, or even tens of billions of dollars.”

More than 250 people who were on last year’s list did not appear on this year’s list, including Kanye West, who lost his contract with Adidas, and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who lost 94% of his fortune in one day.