Gautam Adani is the third richest person in the world; and the richest in Asia
Virendra Pandit
Ahmedabad: After Tesla Motors chief Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, both Americans, India’s billionaire Gautam Adani has emerged as the world’s third wealthiest and Asia’s richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.
With a USD 137.4 billion fortune, Adani has overtaken France’s Bernard Arnault and now trails just Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos of the US in the ranking.
Also, unlike other Indian billionaires who are mostly headquartered in metropolitan cities, the Adanis are based out of Ahmedabad, in Gujarat.
This means wealth generation is no longer a ‘prerogative’ of those hailing from the biggest Indian cities. Wealth-making is now shifting from metros to Tier One to Three cities and towns.
The Adani Group, led by Gautam Adani, is a single-generation behemoth. When “Gautambhai,” as the Group Chairman is known, turned 60 on June 24 this year, his family announced to donate Rs. 60,000 crores (USD 7.7 billion) for social causes.
But until a decade ago, few outsides of India had heard of him or his Adani Group. A college dropout, Gautam Adani first tried his luck as a diamond trader before turning to trade via Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL), which is now the group’s flagship firm.
With him, the first Asian person has broken into the top three of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Others, including Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani and China’s Alibaba chief Jack Ma, never made it that far.
In the last two decades, the Adani Group has expanded its coal-to-ports conglomerate and ventured into everything from data centers to cement, media, and alumina. The Group now owns India’s largest private-sector port and airport operating company, city-gas distribution, and coal mining.
In November 2021, the Adanis pledged to invest USD 70 billion in green energy to become the world’s largest renewable-energy producer.
It has received investments from leading global firms, including Warburg Pincus and TotalEnergies SE. This has helped Adani enter the echelons previously dominated by US tech Mughals, and the surge in coal in recent months has further turbocharged his ascent, said Bloomberg.
In 2022 alone, Adani added USD 60.9 billion to his fortune, which is five times more than anyone else. He first overtook Ambani as the richest Asian in February, became a centi-billionaire in April, and surpassed Microsoft Corp.’s Bill Gates as the world’s fourth-richest person last month.
Adani moved past some of the world’s richest US billionaires partly because they have recently boosted their philanthropy. Gates said in July that he was transferring USD 20 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, while Warren Buffett has already donated over USD 35 billion to the charity.
The two, along with Gates’s ex-wife Melinda French Gates, started the Giving Pledge initiative in 2010, vowing to give away most of their fortunes in their lifetimes. The billions of dollars spent on philanthropy have pushed them lower on the Bloomberg wealth ranking. They’re now fifth and 164th, respectively, Bloomberg said.
