Elon Musk loses his position atop Forbes' annual billionaires list

New York CNN

Elon Musk is officially dethroned at the top of Forbes' annual "World's Billionaire's List."

Tesla and Twitter's CEO is now the second richest billionaire. His estimated net worth is $180 billion dollars, $39 billion less that the previous year. Bernard Arnault is the top man, chairman of French luxury goods company LVMH. His net worth has increased by more than $50 billion over the last year, to $211 billion.

Musk shouldn't be surprised by this, as his position has been fluctuating on Forbes' "Real-Time Billionaires" list, which is constantly updated, over the last few months. He and Arnault frequently switch places.

The list on Tuesday tracks his wealth every year. Forbes explained that Musk’s wealth fell because his $44 billion Twitter acquisition, funded by Tesla share, scared investors, and sent Tesla stock plummeting last year. Tesla has recovered a lot of the losses this year, but it is still much lower than before Musk purchased Twitter.

Forbes stated that Musk has'mostly tweeted himself out of top spot in the rankings', because Tesla shares have fallen 50% since his takeover on Twitter a year ago. The magazine points out that SpaceX has been a bright spot in the last year, as its valuation increased from $13 billion up to $140 billion.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, lost the most money out of all the billionaires on the list (57 billion dollars), putting him in third place. Amazon shares lost nearly 40% of their worth last year, which is what caused the loss.

Forbes has said that Arnault will have a 'banner' year in 2022 due to record profits at the luxury conglomerate which includes Louis Vuitton Christian Dior Tiffany & Co. The shares of LVMH are up 25% over the last year, and the patriarch recently revealed succession plans for his children.

Forbes reported that this year, the number of billionaires was down to 2,640 from 2,668, marking the second consecutive year of decline.

Forbes senior editor for wealth Chase Peterson Withorn said in a press release that it was 'another rare down year' for the world's richest. Nearly half of the list are poorer today than they were a year ago. However, a few lucky people have become billions - or even tens and tens billions - of dollars wealthier.

The list of the richest people in the world is a little different this year. It includes Sam Bankman-Fried from FTX, who lost 94% his wealth on one day, and Kanye West who lost his Adidas contract.