ELON MUSK HAS been replaced as the richest person in the world. 

He has been overtaken by French billionaire Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of LVMH, the world’s leading luxury retail group which owns 75 premium brands including Louis Vuitton and Moët & Chandon. 

Reports from Forbes on Monday morning signalled Tesla’s shares fell by 4% following a weekend of public condemnation of the company’s CEO.

The drop shaved nearly $5 billion off Musk’s profits in the process and knocking him back to number two spot.

It is the first time the Twitter and SpaceX owner has slipped in the rankings since he overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the richest person in September 2021.

According to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, which tracks the net worth of the world’s 500 wealthiest people, 73-year-old Arnault is now valued at $171 billion, while Musk trails behind at $164 billion.

The two men are followed by Gautam Adani, founder of Adani Group, the largest port operator in India, in third and Bezos in fourth.

Boycott/Tesla

Musk’s drop in financial ranking follows a tumultuous few weeks as Twitter CEO. 

Yesterday saw the relaunch of a the platform’s subscription service, after a first attempt led to an embarrassing spate of fake accounts that scared advertisers and cast doubt on the site’s future.

It came after a weekend of erratic tweeting from Musk. 

On Sunday, he lashed out against the outgoing key advisor for the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Anthony Fauci, a frequent target of vitriol on right-wing media.

“My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” he said, tauntingly playing on the growing practice for people to indicate their preferred gender pronouns.

By Monday night, the comment on Twitter in response to Musk called for people to change their pronouns to Boycott/Tesla.

The White House blasted Musk for the tweets against Fauci calling them “disgusting” and “divorced from reality”.

“These are incredibly dangerous, these personal attacks that we are seeing,” said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre.

CNN reported that Twitter’s former head of trust and safety had fled his home after baseless attacks on Twitter, endorsed by Musk.

Yoel Roth, who left the company in November, has been the subject of threats since Musk’s release of internal documents that play into unsubstantiated theories about collusion by some inside Twitter with the Democratic Party.

The attacks took a serious turn on Sunday when Musk endorsed a tweet that accused Roth of being an apologist for pedophilia – a common trope used by conspiracy theorists to target opponents.

The South African-born billionaire’s embrace of right-wing talking points seemed to attract increasing scorn in politically liberal San Francisco, where Twitter is headquartered.

Musk was loudly booed by a crowd in the city on Sunday after he was invited on stage by comedian Dave Chappelle.

“It’s almost as if I’ve offended San Francisco’s unhinged leftists … but nahhh,” Musk tweeted after the event.

Carolina Milanesi, a tech analyst for Creative Strategies, warned that Musk’s political turn on Twitter could be problematic for the company going forward.

With reporting from AFP.