The world's richest man has changed hands again. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who has just achieved great things in space, ceded his richest position to his old rival, French luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault, on August 4. The latter owns luxury goods group LVMH, whose subsidiaries include Louis Vuitton, Sephora and Tiffany, and is therefore jokingly described as "the man who can steal women's money the most".
Arnault's luxury goods industry has shrunk sharply during the epidemic, but Arnault's personal wealth has increased by nearly $100 billion in the past year.
Who is buying luxury goods? Where does the rich spend their money? Data platform Statista shows that the world's super-rich are most willing to spend money, ranking first for luxury cars, second for luxury goods, including jewelry and clothing, and third for hotels. Weather-X, a service platform that studies the rich, gives a more comprehensive conclusion: the rich spend the most money on charity, followed by financial investment, and then sports (golf, football, skiing top three).
LV Group boss Arnault overtook Bezos to become the world's richest man
The way the rich spend their money reflects their character, reflects the level of social responsibility, and is even closely related to the culture and national character of the country where they live.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="15" > the pompous richest man</h1>
Curiosity about the glamorous and beautiful life of the rich seems to be engraved in the genes of ordinary people. On Chinese video platforms, Vlogs about visiting billions of Marriott homes, giving personal training to rich children, and showing the daily lives of rich people often become blockbusters.
Contextualized in India, the extravagance and glamorousness of the life of the super-rich is revealed at the high-profile weddings of their descendants. The documentary "Big Day" truly records six marriages between the second generation of India's richest people: private banquets and stage performances, a highly visually stunning wedding scene; according to Indian tradition, the wedding lasts at least three days, and the families, cultures and knowledge of both the couple are presented in the elaborate wedding.
Muksh Ambani custom-built a car for his wife, Nita, with 300,000 real diamonds set throughout the body
Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man and at the helm of Reliance Group, shocked the world with the week-long wedding he organized for his daughter in 2018. In December 2018, the richest man, Isa Ambani, married Anand Pilamar, the 24th richest son in India, who works in real estate development and has a father's net worth of $4.2 billion.
Even though her childhood playmate, Piramal, was already from a privileged background, Isa Ambani was "married". She graduated from Yale University with a double degree in psychology and South Asian studies, and in 2016 founded AJIO, a fashion e-commerce platform that benchmarks Amazon. As the richest man in India, my father rose to become asia's richest man in July 2018 with a net worth of US$44.3 billion.
The disparity in strength between the family and his own family did not hinder Mukesh's seriousness and arrogance in dealing with his daughter's marriage. At the week-long wedding, each invitation was worth $30,000 because it was studded with gold; more than a dozen five-star hotels near the wedding were fully booked, the airport apron lasted for multiple charter flights for a week; and about 5,100 guests were invited. According to Bloomberg, the wedding cost $100 million, although this figure was later denied by people close to the Ambani family.
Isa Ambani wedding scene
Luxury weddings are divided into pre-wedding parties and formal wedding ceremonies, the former being held at the honeymoon mecca Udaipur, one of the top 10 hotels in the world. The formal wedding ceremony takes place in the heart of Mumbai in the heart of Mumbai in a 27-storey mansion built by the richest man in 2011. Named "Antira", the self-built mansion bears the same name as the island in ancient mythology, and the total floor area of the mansion is 110,000 square meters, which exceeds the Palace of Versailles in France.
It's no surprise that the lavish locations are shocking to the people invited to congratulate – many of the world's top business magnates, politicians and celebrities.
"Queen of Heaven" Beyoncé, dressed in traditional Indian bridal costumes, sang and danced at the pre-wedding party in gold and silver, while the well-known boy group Maroon5 ignited the atmosphere in the second half. The big people at the wedding scene also include former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, American news giant Murdoch, Huffington Post founder Ariane Huffington, BP CEO Bob Dudley, Bollywood national treasure actor Amir Khan and so on.
On Isa Ambani's wedding day, Beyoncé wore traditional Indian costumes made of heavy gold
World-class politicians and business magnates are invited to show the influence of India's richest man. Mukesh Ambani, the eldest son of Druby Ambani, the founder of India's Reliance Industries Group, separated from his brother Anil after several years of disagreement with his brother After the death of his father. With several successful investments and ventures after the separation, such as Reliance Jio, a telecom operator that offers 4G networks, Muksh made it onto India's rich list. Today, Reliance Industries controls India's power, oil exploration, finance, biotechnology and telecommunications sectors.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="105" > the wedding of the rich bar</h1>
India's former richest man, Lakshmi Mittal, has also made headlines. He also attended the wedding of Muksh's daughter. As a well-known steel tycoon, he has owned the world's largest steel manufacturer, Mittal Steel, through investments and mergers and acquisitions. In 2005, he was the third richest man on the Forbes list, behind Bill Gates and Buffett.
It was also during this period that Lakshmi prepared a lavish wedding in Paris for his daughter Vanissa Mittal. In 2004, Vanessa's wedding event took place at the Palace of Versailles, and guests watched a fireworks display in front of the Eiffel Tower. There are reports that Mittal was the first to hold a private event at the Palace of Versailles.
Vanessa Mittal wedding scene
Another record of Lakmir is buying a house. In 2008, Lakshmi bought a mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens, London's old regal district, spending a record £117 million at the time. The mansion reportedly has 12 bedrooms, and even the marble on the floor is consistent with the materials used in the Taj Mahal. Such a large deal shows Mittal's wealth and social status, so that he has become increasingly old since then, and he has kept a low profile and cannot escape the attention of everyone.
In 2020, when Lakshmi's younger brother Pramod was declared bankrupt by a British court, the world once again drew attention to his brother. You know, Pramond has been in financial crisis several times because of debt. Lakshmi also paid $200 million in 2019 to pay off his brother's debt. The entanglement between the 70-year-old Lakshmi and his "bottomless" brother will continue to play out in his lifetime.
The author of the best-selling book" "Billionaire Raj: A Journey to India's New Gilded Age" has concluded that India's wedding has become a symbol of the country's new rich elite, a great means of showing money and social status.
The Guardian | a grand celebration of several days to commemorate the marriage of the daughter of India's richest man
For the admiration of luxury weddings, there may be someone more professional than India's richest man , former US President Trump. Some American media commented: "The wedding of Donald and Melania in January 2005 set the tone for their extravagant life." At her wedding 16 years ago, Melania reportedly wore a Dior haute couture wedding dress embroidered with 1,500 crystal rhinestones, considered one of the most expensive wedding dresses in the world at the time, costing about $100,000.
The Trumps also invited 400 guests to the wedding. Dinner was made by a celebrity chef for $110,000; Melania's diamond engagement ring was a 12-carat emerald ring worth $1.5 million; and the scene was star-studded, with former President Clinton and Hillary Clinton, who would later become Trump's rival, also attending the wedding as fate arranged.
After the birth of the couple's son, Barron Trump, he occupied an entire floor of the villa, equipped with a children's room, kitchen, nanny room and so on. Alan deGeneres, the host of the well-known "Allen Show", also gave Barron a gold-encrusted stroller and a chandelier that belonged to the stroller alone.
The scene of Trump's wedding with Melania
The unabashed Trump has not reined in his high-profile display of wealth, even after running for president. In her new book, Never Satisfied: How My Family Made the Most Dangerous Man in the World, Trump's niece Mary complains: "Donald's vanity has formed and is a fragile barrier between him and the real world. Thanks to his father's strength and money, he never had to negotiate with himself. ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="107" > cautious European billionaire</h1>
In europe's elite circles, more people promote the tradition of low-key, humble and non-rich.
The late former Sweden's richest man, Ingvar Kamprad, the "father of IKEA", is best known for his style. The man who brought Nordic aesthetics to the world inexpensively followed frugal, minimalist habits. His car is a Volvo that is more than ten years old, and the furniture in his home is almost all IKEA products assembled by himself, and he often flies in economy class.
The IKEA Group calls Ingvar Kamprad "one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the twentieth century", and he is often referred to by the media as the most "miserly" billionaire
One of the most exaggerated claims is that Kamprad only gets a haircut in developing countries. He was even complained by the person in charge of the Chinese region, and when he came to China, he negotiated with the roadside stall owner for 20 yuan for half an hour.
A similar life of minimalism happened to Ammancio Ortega, the founder of Inditex, the world's largest fashion group and the father of Zara. As a person who influences the vane of the fashion circle, he is extremely low-key, rarely appears in public, and once said, "You can only appear in the newspaper three times, the first time is your birth, the second time is your marriage, and the third time is death", showing his negative attitude in the face of the spotlight.
According to reports, Amancio is accustomed to wearing one type of clothing every day, often eating in the company canteen, rarely traveling on vacation, and living as ordinary as ordinary "social animals".
At the end of August 2017, according to the data of the Forbes real-time rich list, Amancio Ortega, the founder of Inditex, the parent company of Zara (demand area: 1000-2500 square meters) and the richest man in Spain, surpassed Microsoft founder Bill Gates several times in a week to become the world's richest man
Low-key and humble behavior is very common in the German rich circle. Germans who lived through World War II were better able to understand how to remain humble. For example, Aldi, a retail chain group that made its fortune by selling food to the poor after World War II, despite its expansion of branches in Europe and the United States, the brothers at the helm were reluctant to show their faces, dressing and wearing clothes and outfits that were no different from ordinary people. Even when his brother Carl Albrecht died in 2014, the media only learned of his death on the fourth day after his death, after a small memorial service for his family.
Susanna Kraten, the second-generation heir to the BMW group and owns nearly half of the group, has said that although she has inherited a huge fortune, the sense of responsibility and people's jealousy brought by it is an incomprehensible burden. "A lot of people think we're always sitting on a yacht in the Mediterranean. The role of the guardian of wealth also has a less rosy side. Suzanne says it's not money that drives her job, but the sense of responsibility to ensure employment.
In contrast, Russia's rich have their own special temperament. Looking at the top 25 of Russia's rich list, you will find that they are inextricably linked to the regime. Affected by the relationship between government and business, wealthy businessmen in some industries have chosen to emigrate abroad - with the help of the British past policy of "investing more than 17 million pounds in exchange for residency" policy, settled in London.
Alexei Mordasov, russia's new forbes, | As the Russian economy emerges from the shadow of the covid-19 pandemic, Mordasov's stakes in Severstal, a listed steel and mining company, and NordGold, a private gold mine, have grown significantly, with his personal and family net worth reaching $29.1 billion, an increase of $12.3 billion over last year
As a result, a new group of rich people has attracted countless attention on social media - the rich second generation from Russia. Most of them are educated in European and American countries, and their style of behavior is moving closer to the British upper class, but they also show the brash, direct, and fierce character of the Russian nation, often dressed in a rather shocking luxury, and active in the various high-roller schools and social occasions.
Some media commented that Russia's rich second generation is in between - they have said goodbye to the kind of show off the glittering red Ferrari parked outside the department store, waiting for multiple tickets on the windshield, but not to the extent of reusing plastic wrap. The latter is the means by which Britain's most traditional elite families maintain their wealth.
Author | Zhu Qiuyu
Edit | Xie Yiqiu [email protected]
Typography | Xiao Jinyu
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