French businessman Bernard Arnault is richest person in the world as of February 2024, according to Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List.

Arnault, who is the chairman and CEO of the global luxury goods company LVMH, was worth US$ 212 billion.

LVMH runs dozens of luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Sephora, and Tiffany & Co.

Arnault overtook Elon Musk as the richest person in 2024 after the American’s wealth registered a 21 per cent decline from US$245.3 billion to US$194.6 billion.

The Frenchman has also invested in businesses such as Netflix and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

Jeff Bezos, the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon-the world's largest e-commerce and cloud computing company- comes in at number three with an estimated worth of US$192.4 billion.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg came in at number four with an estimated worth of US$161.8 billion.

His net worth surged by over US$45 billion by February 2024 compared to November 2023, after Meta’s latest results far exceeded Wall Street’s expectations, sending its shares up, according to Forbes.

Zuckerberg’s net worth growth of 39 per cent moved him from 7th to 4th, overtaking Bill Gates (Microsoft), Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) and Larry Ellison (Oracle Corporation).

In fifth position was Ellison (US$144.0 billion) then Buffet at sixth (US$128.7 billion) and Gates seventh (US$123.1 billion).

Larry Page, Steve Ballmer and Sergey Brin were eighth, ninth and 10th position with wealth estimated at US$120.3 billion, US$119.2 billion and US$115.4 billion respectively.

The combined wealth of the 10 richest individuals in the world amounts to US$1.44 trillion.

The richest woman was L’Oréal’s Françoise Bettencourt whose wealth was estimated at US$99.5 billion.

Bettencourt saw her fortune grow by US$1.2 billion in 2023, according to Forbes.

The second richest woman was Alice Walton (US$64.8 billion) followed by Julia Koch (US$60.1 billion).

Jacqueline Mars (US$39.8 billion) and Mackenzie Scott (US$34.5 billion) were fourth and fifth richest women.

Miriam Adelson (US$33.8 billion), Gina Rinehart (US$30.2 billion), Savitri Gindal (US$30.0 billion), Rafael Diamant (US$ 29.4 billion) and Abigail Johnson (US$ 28.6 billion) were sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th richest women respectively.