Some might think that his rise to the top this month is a cyclical fluke. Yet however different the 73-year-old is from a tech mogul, he, too, has remade the world of business
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskIn many ways Mr Arnault, the first European to rise to the top of the world’s rich lists, is the epitome of how to do business in the old continent. As his remarks to Jobs suggested, he thinks about the distant past and decades into the future, not just about next year’s profits. He relishes craftsmanship, championing outré designers, perfumers and cellar masters, while often reserving for himself the last word on product details.
Mr Arnault has been high on the rich list for more than 15 years. Some might think that his rise to the top this month, with a net worth, according to, of $180bn, is a cyclical fluke, the result of American technology stocks falling out of vogue, Mr Musk immolating his fortune, and analogue stuff—when untouched by the cost-of-living crisis—having a moment of glory. Yet however different the 73-year-old Mr Arnault is from a tech mogul, he, too, has remade the world of business.
His indoctrination into swashbuckling capitalism came in New York in the early 1980s, where he fled from French socialism. Little is known about his time there, but when he returned to France in 1984, he was quick to deploy the barbarian tactics emerging on Wall Street. First came the leveraged buy-out. He spotted a down-at-heel Christian Dior buried within a struggling textile conglomerate. He sold the dross and polished up Dior, the 38-year-old crown jewel.
Yet Mr Arnault’s European heritage gives him an extra edge in the wealth stakes. He has an old-world faith in bloodlines. Unlike Mr Musk, who has squandered some of his Tesla stock on Twitter, Mr Bezos, who surrendered part of Amazon to his ex-wife, and Mr Gates, who has sold most of his Microsoft shares, his number-one priority is to retain control ofin which his family holds an unassailable 48% stake.
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