The family

He has two children from his first marriage, Antoine and Delphine, and three from his second: Alexandre, Frédéric and Jean. Four of them work at LVMH. Antoine is chief executive of Berluti, chairman of Loro Piana and head of communications and image for the whole group; Delphine is executive vice president of Louis Vuitton, member of the executive board of LVMH and spearheaded the LVMH prize for young designers, the most lucrative emerging designer prize in fashion. Alexandre is chief executive of Rimowa, the luggage brand, and Frédéric is strategy and digital director of Tag Heuer. One of the most popular games among LVMH Kremlinologists is “who’s the successor?” So far, it’s still anyone’s guess.

With whom does he hang out?

The power crowd. He is such good friends with Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president of France, that he was a witness at Mr. Sarkozy’s 2008 wedding to Carla Bruni, and is also close to the current French president, Emmanuel Macron, and to Tony Blair, the former British prime minister. He also knew President Trump during their time in New York in the 1980s, and was among the first international business leaders to visit the new president at Trump Tower in early 2017. Last month, Mr. Trump cut the ribbon on a new Louis Vuitton factory in Texas. Mr. Arnault also was close to Karl Lagerfeld, the Chanel and Fendi designer who died in February.

Does he ever lose?

Rarely (when he plays tennis with Roger Federer, perhaps) — and when he does he usually still makes money out of the deal. He fought a handbags-at-dawn battle with Kering (then PPR) for Gucci in 1999, which he eventually lost, and in 2010 began buying Hermès stock, much to the Dumas family’s dismay. The following year the Hermès chief executive, Patrick Thomas, effectively compared the unwelcome approach to a “rape” (they eventually made peace and Mr. Arnault backed off, after reaping a tidy profit from his investment).

He also suffered a quasi-black eye when the French media discovered in 2012 that he had applied for a Belgian passport during the socialist administration of President François Hollande, though he said it was only for estate planning purposes.

Is he done buying?

Don’t be silly. This year alone he made a deal with Rihanna to open a new luxury house with her, and next year LVMH is reopening La Samaritaine department store/hotel/spa on the Right Bank in Paris — after a 15-year, $1 billion renovation. This year he also signed a joint venture with Stella McCartney, so she’s part of the fold, too, and has become a special adviser to the chairman for sustainability. Once upon a time he considered buying Armani, and rumor has long had it that he would dearly love to add Chanel to the group.

What’s next?

Outreach! Recently (and somewhat under the influence of his children), the wolf is starting to change his pelt. In 2014 he built the Fondation Louis Vuitton in the Bois de Boulogne, an extraordinary Frank Gehry-designed museum for contemporary art (and his own corporate contemporary art collection) that will ultimately become a gift to the city of Paris. In addition, he has pledged €200 million to the restoration of Notre-Dame after the fire earlier this year, and LVMH has donated $11 million to fight the wildfires in the Amazon rainforest. He has also been much more vocal about sustainability.

So now he’s Mr. Nice and Cuddly?

Well, I wouldn’t go that far.