Elon Musk and Bernard Arnault, the two richest men in the world, met for lunch in Paris, last Friday, at a luxury hotel with close family members ahead of a technology conference hosted by an Arnault-owned company where Musk was speaking.
Arnault, the 74-year-old luxury goods executive with a family fortune worth an estimated $233 billion, told French news program Quotidien he was meeting the Tesla CEO, worth $237 billion, for lunch because “I know him [and] I think he is an exceptional entrepreneur.”
The two dined at Cheval Blanc, the luxury hotel chain that’s owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the luxury goods conglomerate which Arnault gained control of in 1987, according to Bloomberg.
The Tesla CEO was accompanied by his mother, Maye Musk, while Bernard Arnault, Chairman and CEO of LVMH, came with two of his sons - Antoine and Alexandre Arnault.
Antoine Arnault shared a few pictures from the lunch on Instagram Stories where Elon Musk and Bernard Arnault are seen posing together.
After lunch, Elon Musk attended the seventh edition of the Viva Technology conference, which was held from June 14 to June 17 in Pairs, France. The annual conference was founded by the Publicis Groupe SA and Les Echos, which are owned LVMH. It is “Europe's biggest startup and tech event” aimed at promoting innovation by connecting tech leaders, startups, major corporations, and investors. Arnault’s holding company, Agache, backs a venture capital firm with investments in TikTok parent company ByteDance.
The nature of Musk and Arnault’s discussion over lunch was not made public .
Musk while in Paris met also with President Emmanuel Macron to discuss building a Tesla factory in the country.
