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Elon Musk is no longer the richest man in the world, after a sharp drop in the value of his shares in electric car company Tesla this year.
And according to both Forbes and Bloomberg, Bernard Arnault, CEO of luxury goods group Moi Hennessy Louis Vuitton, replaced Musk at the top of the richest in the world.
Musk is the CEO of Tesla, and is its largest shareholder, with a stake of about 14 percent.
He completed the $44 billion acquisition of social network Twitter in October.
According to Forbes, Musk’s net worth is now about $178 billion, while Bernard Arnault’s worth is $188 billion.
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Bernard Arnault overtook Elon Musk to become the richest man in the world, according to Forbes magazine
Musk’s acquisition of Twitter was not completed until after months of legal controversy, and some pointed to Musk’s distraction during the acquisition as one of the factors behind Tesla’s share price drop.
After acquiring a stake in Twitter at the beginning of the year, Musk made his offer of $44 billion in April, although many considered that offer too high.
In July, he pulled out of the deal, citing concerns about the number of fake accounts on the platform.
Eventually, Twitter executives took legal action to get Musk to stick to his offer.
Dan Ives of investment firm Wedbush Securities said the “fuss” surrounding the Twitter deal had weighed on Tesla’s share price.
He told the BBC: “Musk has gone from being a superhero when it comes to Tesla shares, to being a villain in the eyes of the stock market, where it gets worse with every tweet.”
“The hype around Twitter has hurt Musk’s brand, and he’s become a huge drag on Tesla shares. Musk is Tesla and Tesla is Musk,” he added.
Musk sold billions of dollars worth of Tesla stock to help fund his purchase of Twitter, which helped push the stock lower.
Investors were also worried that demand for the company’s electric cars could slow, due to a downturn in the economy, rising loan costs for potential buyers and other companies’ strengthening of electric vehicle offerings.
Tesla has also faced recalls, as well as government investigations into crashes and its self-driving feature.