Gautam Adani named world’s third richest person. With an estimated $137 billion (£117 billion) fortune, Indian tycoon Gautam Adani has been named the world’s third richest person, becoming the first Asian to break into the top three of the world’s wealthy.
Adani, 60, who dropped out of university to found the mining-to-energy conglomerate Adani Group, was ranked third on the daily-updated Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Tuesday.
According to the index, his wealth has increased by $61 billion this year as the market value of many of his companies has increased.
Many of his companies are involved in natural gas, coal mining, and electricity generation, and they are likely to have benefited from the rise in global energy prices.
Adani jumped ahead of Bernard Arnault, the French billionaire who owns the majority of the luxury brand portfolio LVMH.
Arnault’s fortune has fallen by $42 billion this year to $136 billion.
Except for Adani, all of the top ten billionaires have seen their wealth fall this year after making massive gains during the Covid crisis.
The only people richer than Adani are Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is worth an estimated $251 billion, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who is worth $153 billion.
Adani’s conglomerate owns India’s largest private sector seaport and airport operator, as well as a massive coalmine in Queensland, Australia.
The company has come under fire for its environmental impact on the Great Barrier Reef, as well as its use of billions of litres of water each year.
Greta Thunberg, a teenage Swedish environmentalist, has been among those campaigning against the Carmichael coalmine. Indian tycoon Gautam Adani named world’s third richest person. With an estimated $137 billion (£117 billion)
It pledged last year to invest $70 billion in green energy and become the world’s largest producer of renewables.
