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French billionaire Bernard Arnault has fallen out of the world’s top 10 richest people for the first time in many years. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, his fortune dropped to $143 billion on Thursday, sending the founder of LVMH below 96-year-old Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Bloomberg reports.

Elon Musk remains the undisputed leader of the ranking, with an estimated fortune of $918.8 billion. He is followed largely by American technology entrepreneurs: Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin and Michael Dell. For the first time since Bloomberg launched its index in 2012, all 10 spots at the top of the ranking are occupied by Americans.

The decline in the fortune of 77-year-old Arnault has been particularly striking since the beginning of the year. Since January, his wealth has fallen by roughly $65 billion — the largest decline among the world’s 500 richest people.

LVMH’s business empire has been hit hard by the war in the Middle East. The drop in demand has been particularly noticeable in major shopping hubs such as Dubai, where consumers have begun spending less on the group’s brands, from Dior, Louis Vuitton and Tiffany to premium alcohol labels such as Dom Pérignon champagne and Hennessy cognac.

Additional challenges have emerged in China, one of LVMH’s most important markets. In particular, Louis Vuitton sales have suffered amid the brand’s legal dispute with a local tea chain.

Against this backdrop, the U.S. stock market has been moving in the opposite direction: the S&P 500 has gained roughly 11% since the start of the year, with technology companies benefiting from surging demand for artificial intelligence technologies among the key drivers of the rally.

Arnault had been among the world’s 10 richest people since March 22, 2017. At the end of 2022, he even briefly became the richest person on the planet, overtaking Elon Musk. He was the first person from outside North America — and the only representative of the consumer-goods industry — to top the global wealth ranking.

But times have changed. Arnault’s wealth peaked during a period when Chinese consumers were driving luxury sales and the industry was enjoying a powerful post-pandemic boom fueled by pent-up demand. LVMH shares reached a record high in April 2023, but the company has since faced weakening demand, particularly in China, uncertainty over U.S. tariffs and declining alcohol consumption in some markets.

Arnault’s fortune now stands only slightly above that of Jim Walton, heir to the American Walmart retail empire.

At the same time, increasing attention is being focused on the question of who will eventually succeed Arnault. The billionaire has five children from two marriages, all of whom work at LVMH. For the first time, all five appeared together at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in April. Arnault himself, however, declined to directly answer the question of which of his children could one day succeed him as CEO of LVMH.

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