Gautam Adani became the world's second richest person, but only for a brief period. The tycoon surpassed Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and Louis Vuitton's Bernard Arnault to grab the second spot with a net worth of $154.7 billion, showed Forbes' real-time billionaires list, before he was pushed back to the third position by Arnault.
Elon Musk remains the richest person with a net worth of $273.5 billion. Last month too, Adani had overtaken Arnault to grab the third spot, but was behind Musk and Bezos. This time he overtook Bezos for a brief period.
Adani's wealth, meanwhile, slumped to $151.3 billion as his gains were slashed to $1.1 billion from over $4 billion, and he settled at the third position. Mukesh Ambani, who heads Reliance Industries Ltd, is at the eighth spot and is worth $92 billion.
Adani heads the Adani Group which comprises seven publicly listed companies spanning infrastructure, mining, energy, and other sectors. Over the past five years, Adani Enterprises has invested heavily in new growth sectors including airports, cement, copper refining, data centres, green hydrogen, petrochemical refining, roads and solar cell manufacturing. It also plans to foray into the telecom space and has massive plans to grow its green hydrogen and airports businesses. Adani Group has also committed $70 billion for green energy infrastructure.
Karan Adani is ACC chairman
In a board reshuffle following the completion of the acquisition of Switzerland-based building materials conglomerate Holcim’s India assets, Ambuja Cements and ACC, Gautam Adani was appointed chairman of Ambuja Cements while his elder son Karan was named a director of both cement firms and as chairman of ACC. For Karan, this would be additional responsibilities, as the 35-year-old is also the chief executive officer of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone.
