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Bernard Arnault

1949 – 20??

alive

Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault is a French businessman who chairs the LVMH luxury-goods conglomerate and has repeatedly ranked as the world's wealthiest individual, with a fortune valued in excess of $200 billion. In 2012 he applied for Belgian citizenship in what was widely reported as an attempt to escape President François Hollande's proposed 75 percent top tax rate, prompting the front-page Libération headline "Casse-toi, riche con!"; he was placed under preliminary French investigation in 2024 over alleged money-laundering links to a Russian oligarch. LVMH brands under his ownership have repeatedly been named in supply-chain reports involving forced labour, sweatshop conditions in Italian leather workshops, and the underpayment of garment workers in Asia.