Europe’s richest man sues Elon Musk’s X over not paying for using his newspapers’ content: Report

Bernard Arnault, Europe’s richest person is suing Elon Musk’s social media platform X (Formerly Twitter), claiming his newspapers’ content is being used without paying for it, according to a report by The Telegraph.

The newspapers in question are Le Parisien and Les Echos, two French dailies owned by Arnault’s luxury empire LVMH.

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The lawsuit is also supported by two other dailies, Le Figaro and Le Monde and claims that the newspapers are due for payment under a 2019 European directive which allows newspapers, magazines or press agencies to be remunerated when their content is reused by digital giants, according to the report.

The report cited the title as saying X never agreed to open negotiations with French news publishers, in contrast to Google and Meta.

This pits two of the richest persons in the world against each other in a courtroom battle.

Elon Musk is currently the world’s richest person with a $319 billion net worth, while Bernard Arnault is the world’s fifth richest person and Europe’s richest, with a $164 billion net worth, according to the Bloomberg billionaires index.

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However, Arnault, who runs brands like Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Givenchy, has traded places with Musk as the world’s richest person multiple times over the recent years.

Aranult’s fortune fell by $43.4 billion year-to-date according to the Index. This was primarily due to weakening demand for luxury goods from China, an important market.

In contrast, Musk’s wealth rose by $90.0 billion year-to-date according to the Index and a lot of this happened recently, due to Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump winning the US elections again this year (Musk was one of his biggest supporters).

The lawsuit comes two months after the Paris judicial court declared X had to provide commercial data to a group of French publishers, including Télérama, Courrier International, Le Huffington Post, Malesherbes Publications and Le Nouvel Obs.

This is because the newspapers claimed X “has not…complied” with this so far, “demonstrating its invariable desire to evade its legal obligations.”

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