Forbes 2023 ranking: here’s who are the richest in the world

ROME. The richest man and woman in the world are French. Bernard Arnault, CEO of the world’s luxury leader LVMH, and Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, heir to L’Oreal, climb the Forbes ranking for 2023. In 2022, Bernard Arnault was positioned third in the annual ranking dominated by Elon Musk, boss of Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX, and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. But last December the French billionaire had dethroned them, with assets steadily rising, now equal to 211 billion US dollars. “For the first time in the history of the ranking, the man and the woman – highlights Forbes France in its press release – a double performance that testifies to the vigor of the French economy despite the various crises that our country is going through, directly or indirectly” .

Elon Musk occupies second place in the world rankings, with a fortune estimated at 180 billion dollars, ahead of Jeff Bezos (114 billion), Larry Ellison, co-founder of software publisher Oracle (107 billion) and businessman Warren Buffett (106 billion). Francoise Bettencourt Meyers (and her family) – eleventh richest in the world with 80.5 billion dollars – is the richest woman in the world for the third consecutive year. She had also been so in 2019, succeeding her mother, Liliane Bettencourt, first woman in the rankings in 2016 and 2017. In France, Forbes lists a total of 43 billionaires, including seven women, “for a total fortune increased by 20.6 % from 2022». Behind Arnault and Bettencourt Meyers are Francois Pinault, founder of the Kering luxury group, then the brothers Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, owners of the Chanel maison, in fourth and fifth position. In sixth place “the first billionaire in the ranking from another horizon” of luxury and beauty, Emmanuel Besnier, CEO of Lactalis. The children of Jacques Saade’, founder of the CMA CGM maritime transport group, Rodolphe, Tanya and Jacques Jr, are respectively in eighth, ninth and tenth place. The “two enemy brothers of mobile telephony”, Xavier Niel (18th) and Patrick Drahi (22nd), owners of Free and Sfr, are both down in the standings.

Among the Italians, Giovanni Ferrero stands out. The entrepreneur with assets of 38.9 billion dollars is in 30th place in the world rankings and, as far as our country is concerned, is followed by the stylist Giorgio Armani with $11.1 billion in assets and ranks 157th overall. Next comes Silvio Berlusconi and his family with assets of 6.8 billion dollars and the position number 352.