While his brands will be front and centre, Arnault's low-key public profile is a sharp contrast to those of Musk and Bezos. Although his company is adept at digital marketing, he's not on social media himself. He can almost blend into the crowd, sitting quietly in his sombre suits in the front row at fashion shows.
Unsurprisingly, though, he's well connected: he received the Légion d'honneur in March from President Emmanuel Macron, whose wife, Brigitte, taught French to two of Arnault's sons. "He is almost like a head of state; he has that level of influence," says political image consultant Frank Tapiro, dubbing Arnault the "godfather of the Olympics". Tapiro, who worked with Arnault as creative director for the launch of the Miss Dior perfume, likened him to Louis XIV, the 18th century Sun King famed for wielding incredible power over his capital from afar.
An engineer who started out at his family's construction firm, Arnault launched his career in luxury by taking over Financière Agache in 1984. He dumped his acquisition's less attractive businesses, keeping only the crown jewels: Christian Dior and ritzy department store Le Bon Marché. Within five years, he had taken a stake in LVMH and become chief executive of the company, born from the merger of Moët Hennessy and Louis Vuitton — brands established centuries before.
Arnault made his fortune by defying conventional wisdom, building a conglomerate in a field where rarity and exclusivity are watchwords. The comp.
