UK government leaks contact details of Europe’s richest man

Human error” led to the publication of Bernard Arnault’s email address, the Department for Business and Trade has said

The British government has apologized for revealing the personal email address of Bernard Arnault, the founder of luxury giant LVMH and Europe’s richest man, in an email circulated ahead of a major investment summit.

Arnault was CC’d in the email sent by the Department for Business and Trade to summit participants earlier this week, meaning that the French tycoon’s email address was visible to anyone who received the message. Other participants, including executives from global banks, multinational corporations, and tech firms, were also CC’d in the message.

”This was caused by an administrative human error, and we apologize to those affected,” the department said in a statement on Friday. “We take data protection very seriously, and we have referred this issue to the Information Commissioner’s Office,” the statement continued.

Organized by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Finance Minister Rachel Reeves, the summit begins in London on Monday, and aims to convince wary investors that Britain is “open for business,” according to a government announcement. However, concerns over high interest rates, excessive regulation, and Starmer’s announcement earlier this year that “things will get worse before they get better” have discouraged the flow of capital into the UK, according to a report by Reuters earlier this month.

Arnault, 75, is Europe’s richest man. A real estate investor during the 1980s, he acquired and revived a number of failing luxury brands, before founding LVMH, a multinational holding company formed from the merger of Louis Vuitton and Moet Hennessy. Today, LVMH has a market capitalization of €325 billion ($355.6 billion) and controls 75 luxury brands, including Dior, Tiffany, Tag Heuer, and Princess Yachts.

After a brief stint as the world’s richest man, a drop in LVMH’s share price in March took Arnault’s net worth from $231 billion to $177 billion, according to Forbes. The influential magazine now places the tycoon’s net worth at $195.5 billion, making him the fifth wealthiest man in the world, behind Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.