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Elon Musk, 51, and Kanye West, 45, are two wealthy people that had a significant change in income this year, impacting their positions on Forbes‘ 37th Annual Billionaires List. The Tesla CEO dropped from the #1 spot last year, to the #2 this year, after he purchased the popular social media platform, Twitter, for a whopping $44 billion. Ye’s drop in income, which was the result of many sponsors cutting ties with him after his public antisemitic comments, caused him to get removed from the list entirely.
The person that took Elon’s place on the list is Bernard Arnault, the chairman of French luxury goods giant LVMH, which owns big name brands like Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Tiffany & Co. Although it was a close call between the two men over the past few months, Bernard came out on top when his net worth increased by $50 billion, leaving him at $211 billion. Elon’s net worth ended at $180 billion, which is a $39 billion drop from last year, Forbes reported.
Kanye, on the other hand, was no longer a billionaire after Adidas, the company he worked with on his Yeezy sneakers line since 2013, dropped him in 2022, according to Forbes. The partnership with the big company apparently accounted for $1.5 billion of his net worth, so the ending of it was a big deal, and seemed to be the direct result of Kanye publicly saying, “I can say antisemitic s—- and Adidas cannot drop me.”
Soon after the ending of Kanye and Adidas’ partnership made headlines, the company released a statement that backed up their decision to part ways from the rapper. “Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech. Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness,” the company said in a press release.
“After a thorough review, the company has taken the decision to terminate the partnership with Ye immediately, end production of Yeezy branded products and stop all payments to Ye and his companies,” they added. “Adidas will stop the Adidas Yeezy business with immediate effect.”
In addition to Elon and Bernard, this year’s Forbes billionaires list includes 150 newcomers. Some of them include NBA star LeBron James, fashion designer Tom Ford, and pro golfer Tiger Woods.
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