It’s the first time an Asian has entered the top three of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index; Jack Ma of China and fellow citizen Mukesh Ambani have never done so.
With a fortune of $137.4 billion, Adani has surpassed Bernard Arnault of France and is now just behind US billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in terms of wealth.
The 60-year-old Adani has invested the last five years in growing his coal-to-ports conglomerate by foraying into a variety of industries, including data centres, cement, media, and alumina. The group today controls the largest private-sector coal miner, city-gas distributor, and operator of ports and airports in India. Environmentalists have attacked the company’s Carmichael mine in Australia, but it promised in November to invest $70 billion in renewable energy to become the greatest generator in the world.
While his enterprise has grown to become one of the largest conglomerates in the world, fuelling the extraordinary increases in wealth, worries have grown over the expansion’s quick pace. According to a report released this month by CreditSights, Adani’s business expansion has been largely supported by debt and that his empire is “seriously over-leveraged.”
In total, Adani increased his wealth by $60.9 billion in 2022 alone, five times more than anyone else. He initially eclipsed Ambani as the wealthiest Asian in February, hit the billionaire mark in April, and this month passed Bill Gates of Microsoft Corp. to become the fourth-richest person in the world.
Adani was able to surpass some of the wealthiest US billionaires in part because to their recent increase in philanthropy. While Warren Buffett has already contributed more than $35 billion to the charity, Gates announced in July that he would be contributing $20 billion to the organisation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Adani, who turned 60 in June, also expanded his charitable giving, promising to donate $7.7 billion to support social initiatives.
Featured Image: Wikimedia Commons
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