South African businessman Johann Rupert, right, with actor Dennis Hopper in 2006. (AP / Alastair Grant)

Johann Rupert, the multibillionaire owner of the luxury jewelry company Cartier, has admitted to a group of his peers that he fears the poor will rise up and bring down the rich.

The Independent reports:

Speaking at the Financial Times Business of Luxury Summit in Monaco (obviously), the fashion tycoon told his fellow elite that he can’t sleep at the thought of the social upheaval he thinks is imminent.

According to Bloomberg, Johann Rupert told the conference to bear in mind that when the poor rise up, the middle classes won’t want to buy luxury goods for fear of exposing their wealth.

He said he had been reading about changes in labour technology, as well as recent Oxfam figures suggesting the top 1 per cent of the global population now owns more wealth than the other 99 per cent.

“How is society going to cope with structural unemployment and the envy, hatred and the social warfare?” he said. “We are destroying the middle classes at this stage and it will affect us. It’s unfair. So that’s what keeps me awake at night.”

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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