Gautam Adani, Asia’s richest billionaire and chairman of the Adani Group, has now become the fourth richest person in the world, overtaking the wealth of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates with an estimated wealth of $116.3 billion on Thursday, as per Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires List. Gates, who for years has held the title of being the world’s wealthiest person, slipped to the fifth position in the billionaire list with an estimated wealth of $104.7 billion.
The number 1 title in the list is held by Tesla’s Elon Musk ($248.7 billion, followed by LVMH’s Bernard Arnault ($156.5 billion) and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos ($148.8 billion). RIL’s Mukesh Ambani was in the 10th position on the list with a fortune of $90 billion.
Adani’s rise to being one of the world’s wealthiest has been eye-catching. In just two years, his personal fortune rose from about $9 billion in 2020 to $90 billion in 2022, as per Forbes’ data. In the calendar year 2022 so far, he has possibly added more billions to his wealth than any other billionaire in the world. As per Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Adani has added over $34 billion to his fortune in 2022 so far. In this index, Adani’s wealth, pegged at $111 billion, is $5 billion short of Bill Gates' wealth, pegged at $116 billion.
In recent trading sessions, Adani Group stocks have seen strong buying as it continues to expand aggressively. Last week, Adani Ports won the tender for the privatisation of a port in Israel in partnership with Gadot while Adani Data Networks applied to participate in the upcoming 5G auction.