Asian Billionaire Overtakes Bill Gates As Fourth Richest Man In The World

Indian industrialist Gautam Adani is now the fourth richest person in the world, overtaking Microsoft Corporation founder Bill Gates.

Adani, the richest man in Asia, currently has a net worth of $116.9 billion, according to Forbes’s Real-Time Billionaires List. Gates, who is now in fifth place, has a net worth of $103.9 billion to date.

Elon Musk, who has a net worth of $243.9 billion, remains on the top of the list.

Gates slipped in the Forbes rankings after announcing that he would donate $20 billion of his personal wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, according to Business Today.

The outlet reported that around the same time, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, along with Israel’s Gadot Group, won the bid to privatize Israel’s second largest port of Haifa for $1.18 billion.

Adani is a college dropout who founded Adani Group, which includes a mix of businesses ranging from power generation and transmission to edible oil to real estate and coal.

As per Forbes, the group has six listed companies in India, the most valuable of which is Adani Green Energy Ltd.

Adani also owns Abbot Point, a controversial coal mining project in Australia, whose Carmichael coal mine is billed as one of the world's largest.

In September 2020, Adani Group acquired a 74% stake in the Mumbai International Airport.

Adani’s net worth climbed the 12-figure mark earlier this year after it was announced that Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Co. invested $2 billion in three of his green energy-focused businesses, namely: Adani Green Energy, Adani Transmission and Adani Enterprises.

Following the announcement in April, shares of Adani Green Energy jumped nearly 25%. Shares of Adani Transmission and Adani Enterprises also rose, by 11% and 3%, respectively.

Adani is also richer than Oracle Corporation founder Larry Ellison, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg, the chairman and CEO of Meta, formerly known as Facebook, who is now 20th on the richest list with a net worth of $57.4 billion.

He is also richer than Mukesh Ambani, the chair of Reliance Industries, who was previously the richest Asian billionaire. Ambani is ranked No. 10 with a net worth of $87.6 billion.