Elon Musk is never out of the headlines – but did you know who the world’s richest woman is?
Introducing Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, the world’s richest woman.
According to Forbes she’s worth a massive $92.6 billion.
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But how did the world’s richest woman come to be so?
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon from his garage, Taylor Swift did the Era’s Tour and Bernard Arnault was CEO of fashion powerhouse LVMH.
Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, however, became the world’s richest woman as a nepo baby.
She inherited a one-third stake in L’Oréal and tens of billions of dollars from her mother when she died in 2017.
And her wealth has only continued to grow since then.
In the first half of this year alone, L’Oréal shares spiked by 29%, per Forbes.
It houses brands including Maybelline, Garnier, Lancôme.
That’s in addition to beauty divisions of luxury fashion houses including Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino.
This is despite her fraught relationship with her mother, a bitter lawsuit over inheritance and allegations of her family being Nazi sympathizers.
And the founding of the empire is, in fact, two generations removed.
The 70 year old is the granddaughter of L’Oréal’s founder, Eugène Schueller.
Schueller was originally a pharmacist who founded L’Oréal in 1909.
But, despite being an heiress, Bettencourt Meyers was less interested in a socialite lifestyle, per Vanity Fair.
In spite of her inherited wealth, Bettencourt Meyers focused on her career as an author.
However, she hasn’t turned her back on the family business entirely.
She sits on L’Oreal’s board and chairs the family’s holding company with a 33% stake in the brand.
As well as her mother’s billions she also inherited some valuable assets – including a mansion.
The art deco mansion is located in the wealthy Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine.
Bettencourt Meyers has also dedicated some of her billions to philanthropy.
As well as pledging millions after Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire, she is president of the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation.
The charity she co-founded in the 1980s issues grants to support research in the life sciences and arts projects.
