It's the lunch to beat all lunches.
The two richest men in the world were to meet on June 16 in Paris. The entrepreneur Elon Musk, 51, and the French executive Bernard Arnault, 74, were expected to share a meal.
"I am having lunch with him, I know him of course," Arnault told French TV news program Quotidien. "I think he is an exceptional entrepreneur."
Antoine Arnault, the eldest son of the French billionaire, was to join the two men.
Musk and Arnault are worth a combined $426 billion. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the CEO of Tesla is the richest man in the world with an estimated fortune of $229 billion as of June 15.
His net wealth has increased by $92.4 billion this year, thanks mainly to the spectacular surge in Tesla’s stock. Musk's fortune is based primarily on his stakes in Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX, his rocket and satellite company.
Arnault is the second richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of $197 billion, up $34.8 billion this year. While the broad public may not know him, his brands are highly popular -- from Dior, Louis Vuitton and Tiffany to champagne producer Veuve Clicquot. All these brands belong to LVMH (LVMUY) , of which Arnault is CEO and the top individual shareholder.
Musk-Arnault Discussion: Twitter and Advertising?
What Musk and Arnault might talk about is the question. Nothing has been disclosed yet. But one can speculate that Musk's microblogging platform, Twitter, might come up. LVMH is one of the world's biggest advertisers.
Twitter has seen an advertising exodus since Musk acquired it in October for $44 billion. Brands fear that their ads will be associated with tweets disseminating hate or false information because Musk, in the name of free speech, has removed all the safeguards put in place by the earlier Twitter management.
This laissez-faire approach has caused a massive return of conspiracy theories to the platform. Musk himself often propagates these theories. Such was the case last October when he promoted fake news and a conspiracy theory linked to the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Last October, Paul Pelosi was violently attacked in his house in San Francisco.
Many Democratic Party leaders, including Hillary Clinton, attributed the attack to America's deepening political divisions and to hate speech by some politicians.
Musk, who had announced his support for the Republican Party a few months earlier, disagreed with that explanation. He put forward another version of the attack based on a conspiracy theory.
"There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye," the billionaire responded to Clinton.
He provided a link to an article in the Santa Monica Observer, which attributed the attack on Pelosi to an argument gone wrong.
Musk later deleted the post.
The Santa Monica Observer has been known for publishing false information on a number of occasions, including a story about Hillary Clinton passing away and her body double being sent to debate Donald Trump in one of the 2016 presidential candidate debates.
In March, Musk said advertising revenue has dropped as much as 50% since he took over.
Musk Seeks Site for Second Europe Tesla Plant
The lunch between Musk and Arnault comes as the American billionaire is traveling in Europe. Musk is currently reviewing different countries that are vying to host the second Tesla factory in Europe. The automaker already has a vehicle production plant near Berlin in Germany.
Italy -- where he met Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on June 16 -- Spain and France are courting him.
After visiting France in mid-May, Musk is back in the country a month later.
He is the star guest at VivaTech, the major European tech conference organized by the advertising agency Publicis Groupe and Les Echos, a business daily newspaper owned by Arnault.
Musk is due to give a speech there on June 16.
