This man is close to becoming the richest in the world

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are the names that come to mind when we think about the richest people on the planet. On the Forbes list, they tend to be the ones vying for the # 1. However, there is a third man, a French national, who managed to be the richest person in the world for a few hours. It's Bernard Arnault.

We are talking about the king of the luxury industry: head of the LVMH group (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) whose profits are immense, especially now that the pandemic is ending.

The stars lined up in such a manner that on the one day, May 21, 2021, Bernard Arnault saw the shares of his conglomerate rise half a point in Europe. This meant a sudden increase of his equity by 800 million dollars.

Meanwhile, in the United States, Amazon lost one percentage point, leaving Jeff Bezos $2.3 billion 'poorer.' This coincidence caused the French and American billionaires to be tied at $186 billion. Two number ones.

The technical tie was broken when, at the closing of the New York Stock Exchange, Bernard Arnault had 100 million dollars more than Jeff Bezos. In other words, the French businessman was, for a moment, the richest man in the world.

It was a brief victory, because hours later, Amazon recovered the green numbers and Jeff Bezos was number one again.

It is not the first time that Bernard Arnault passes Jeff Bezos. The previous occasion was on December 16, 2019. However, at the end of that day Amazon closed higher again and Bezos to continued to top the list.

A year and a half and a pandemic later, both Bezos and Arnault have increased their assets by $76 billion. They maintained their competition for the first place, although Elon Musk has unexpectedly joined it as well.

The cause of LVMH's rise with more than 7% since April 2021 has been the recovery of the luxury market, especially in the United States and China, where fashion, watches and jewellery are booming once again.

Through LVMH, Bernard Arnault and his family have a conglomerate of almost 70 luxury, cosmetic and fashion brands that operate around the world. They include Gucci, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Stella McCartney, Tag Heuer, Bvlgari, Tiffany & Co and Sephora.

Bernard Arnault went from the 150 billion dollars he had in April, when the Forbes list of the richest in the world was drawn up, to 186 billion dollars in May. For a little while, he left Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, among others) in a third place.

Curiously, the impact of the pandemic on the luxury market had left Bernard Arnault's fortune at 76 billion dollars in mid-March 2020.

Then, in just over a year, the billionaire increased his assets by more than $100 billion. This impressive figure puts him in a position to reach the top of the Forbes list in the coming months.

In fact, it seems that Jeff Bezos is going to make it easy for him, since he has been selling Amazon shares after announcing in February that he ceases to be CEO of the company at the end of 2021.

What's more, Amazon shares have fallen about 8% since they peaked on April 29, 2021 ($3,471.30).

That is to say, starting in 2022, the fight to be the richest man in the world will be between Elon Musk and Bernard Arnault, as the Tesla and luxury brand tycoons are jumping onto new and surprising post-pandemic opportunities.