Gautam Adani, billionaire industrialist and Adani Group’s chairperson,
slipped to the third position on Forbes’ real-time billionaires list hours
after he had edged past Bernard Arnault, the co-founder and chairman of LVMH
Moet Hennessy – Louis Vuitton, to become the world’s second richest individual,
according to data by Forbes.

The Forbes list is currently headed by SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk
whose net worth stands at $273.5 billion. He is followed by Arnault, Adani, and
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (net worth $149.7 billion), the data showed.

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During a time when many fortunes around the world have crumbled, Adani
and his family’s net worth has increased more than two times from $64.8 billion
to $151.8 billion according to Forbes’s real-time billionaires list.

The college-dropout-turned-business-tycoon has added more than $70
billion to his wealth in 2022 (YTD) so far, only one among the world’s 10
richest people to have seen this much growth this year. He surpassed Reliance
Industries chairperson Mukesh Ambani as the richest Asian in February.

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In April, Gautam Adani not only reached the $100 billion net worth mark
but also edged past legendary investor Warren Buffett to become the fifth
richest person in the world. He overtook Microsoft’s Bill Gates as the world’s
fourth-richest person last month.

Adani Group’s businesses span infrastructure, commodities, power
generation and transmission and real estate. The group is India’s largest port
operator. The business tycoon has recently been focussing on alternative energy
business, at a time when the government is promoting green energy in the
country.

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The remarkable growth in his wealth has come on the back of a sharp
surge seen in Adani Group stocks. Out of six Adani Group listed companies, five
have rallied over 1000% since April 2020. This list excludes Adani Wilmar,
which debuted earlier this year on the stock markets. The market capitalisation
of Adani Group companies has increased by Rs 17.44 lakh crore since April 1,
2020.

In the last six months, the stock price of Adani Enterprises has surged
over 100%, Adani Power has gained over 200%, Adani Wilmar grew 88%, Adani Road
Transport rose 66%, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zones rose 27% and Adani
Green Energy rose 22%.

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The spectacular growth in share prices has attracted fresh scrutiny to
the valuations of his companies, the leverage embedded throughout his business
and his ties to India’s government.

Fitch Group unit CreditSights called his business “deeply overleveraged”
in a report last month. Adani Group responded by saying it’s improved its debt
metrics over the past decade, with the leverage ratios of its portfolio
companies now “healthy” and in line with their respective industries.

Also Read | Congress slams Adani’s NDTV hostile takeover

In May 2022, he entered the cement industry when he won the race to acquire
Swiss giant Holcim’s cement business in India for $10.5 billion.

Adani aims to become the world’s largest green energy producer and has
said he will invest around $70 billion in renewable energy projects. Earlier in
June, Adani had pledged to donate Rs 60,000 crore to charity to mark his 60th
birthday.