"Thank you." With that single word Bernard Arnault made his debut on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday 27 July, as he launched his personal account. It was a way of addressing his supporters directly and personally after his stand-off with journalists from Le Monde.
A surprise move from the usually discreet 77-year-old boss of LVMH, who tends to keep out of public debate.
The previous day, it was already on X, but via LVMH's official account, that Bernard Arnault had published his right of reply. Le Monde had just unveiled the final part of its investigation into France's richest man. In a series of six articles (source in French), Raphaëlle Bacqué and Vanessa Schneider retrace how the Arnault empire was built, describe the tensions said to be running through his companies and his family today, and refer to a phenomenon of "court" around Bernard Arnault.
"I hadn't been treated like this since the takeover of Boussac in 1984. Back then they called me 'The Terminator'. I prefer 'the last royal family': it's more elegant, and it's better for sales at Dior", he writes at the start of his open letter, laced with sarcasm.
He describes the journalistic work as a "serial", condemning what he sees as melodrama, a taste for the "novelistic" and a transparency that is "punished". "Apparently, in the Arnault family we don't talk things through, we plot [...] What in an ordinary family is called a Sunday is called an intrigue in ours."
